The Conversion of 

Hamilton Wheeler 



A Voluntary Contribution to The National Mental 
Hygiene Movement 



THE CONVERSION OF 

HAMILTON WHEELER 

A Novelette of Religion and Love 
Introducing 

Studies in Religious Psychology and Pathology 

by 
Prescott Locke 



"Some books are to be tasted, 

others to be swallowed, and some 

few to be chewed and digested." 

— Francis Bacon 



THE PANDECT PUBLISHING COMPANY 

BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS 
1917 






Copyright 1917 

By Pandect Publishing Company 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



AUG 27 1917 



A470797 



DEDICATION 



np O THOSE intrepid pioneer reform- 
■*■ ers of this world, who possess the 
capacity, the unswerving independent de- 
liberation, the perseverance, the courage 
of their conscientious convictions, and 
that greater virtue of fortitude and un- 
selfish heroism which is necessary to give 
dauntless expression to that, which they 
have become convinced, in working out 
social problems, will help free Society 
from diseases that afflict it, this little 
work is humbly dedicated in meagre rec- 
ognition and appreciation. 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Introduction 

Pages 

Voluntary contribution to the Mental Hygiene Movement. 
Chief objects of the movement. Serious national 
handicap of mental unsoundness. New York State 
Charities Aid Society's epitome of what each person 
can do in the Mental Hygiene Movement. Difficulties 
of the present work. Need of an "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 
by Revivalism. No pretentions as a work of fiction. 
Excesses which led author into print. On religious 
insanity reports from different parts of the United 
States. The Buchenau murder case. Why harmful 
religion is a great harm. Slowness of Civil Author- 
ities to take action in advance of wildest excesses 
and irreparable damage. Increase of taxes incident 
to increase of insane in institution custody, which 
in New York^ State has increased twice as fast as 
the population. Political handicaps of a Democracy. 
Present day Evangelists operating with eyes open and 
regardless of direful results. Author's acknowledg- 
ments to Author Authorities. Policy to limit criti- 
cism to merit or demerit of text contents 19-27 

CHAPTER I. 

Introduction to the star character. Well born and ideally 
reared by an ideal mother. Reflection of ideal paren- 
tal example. Ideal residence location. Early intimacy 
with the Hunts. Superior educational advantages. 
Removal to Van Cortlandt Park section of New 
York. Change to a boy's school. Athletic sports 
and physical development, followed by sedentation. 
Over stress of school work. Perplexity on choice of 
alternatives. Anxiety to meet economic stress 29-36 

CHAPTER IT. 

Acceptance of invitation to attend revival. Religious bring- 
ing up. Hamilton's religious status. Primary attitude 
toward Evangelist. Ludicrous impressions. Con- 
trast between Evangelist and Rector. Aftermath agi- 
tation and emotion. Revival experience of hymn mo- 
mentum abruptly ending in an immobile state, coupled 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Pages 

with intense excitement. Emotionally rocked to and 
fro by vicissitudes of the service. Production of ten- 
sional state followed by a glow of passionate emotion. 
Impelling character of the besetting emotional im- 
pulses. Outward expressions of release of pent up 
emotions in the departing congregation. Exuberance 
of erotic emotions among young people. Indecorous 
conduct. Coquetry. Initial experience of unsophis- 
ticated suitors. Mutual yielding to amorous emotions 
of religious origin. Mental confusion over relation 
of religion and lust, and over irreconcilable contrasts 
between Evangelists and other clergy. Remorse and 
anxiety engendered by and disturbance of mind fol- 
lowing revival experience ,37-45 

CHAPTER III. 

Visit of Mrs. Wheatcroft. Outpouring of self-made trou- 
bles. Example of feminine discontent and unrest. Eco- 
nomic problems born of war conditions. Deliberations 
on the subject of divorce. Economic relations of 
wedded life. Example of bad influence on children. 
Dissatisfaction over age disparity. Differences in 
taste. Self-love and self-pity. Vanity. Hatred born 
of dissatisfaction. Super-egoism. Expression of re- 
ligious feeling. Expression of unmeant vituperation. 
Unchristian-like acts of the Christian contrasted with 
the ethical behavior of the unbeliever. Dangers of 
suffrage movement. Selfish character of religious ex- 
pressions. Ritualism and Evangelism contrasted. The 
sense of religious experience as an emotion. The 
hyperesthetic and hysterical type portrayed in Mrs. 
Wheatcroft. Hereditary effect of inebriety. Political, 
social, and domestic expression of revival emotional- 
ism. Mrs. Wheatcroft's besetting sin. Impatience, 
unendurance, and intolerance. Hallucinations of per- 
secution. Sudden changes of emotional expression. 
Argument and reason of no avail 46-57 

CHAPTER IV. 

Hamilton exhibits restlessness and goes out for a walk. 
Meets Tom Young. Yields to pressure to attend revival 
again. Acquaintanceship with two girls. Fixation 
of the attention by hymns. Dogmatic and emphatic 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Pages 

affirmations of Evangelist. Fatigue following Evan- 
gelist with eye and ear. Spellbound rigidity of audit- 
ors. Struggle for venting of emotions while yet 
transfixed. Progression of emotional stress. Breath- 
lessness. Contagious influence of movement forward 
crystalized by oral suggestions and example. Card 
signing. Exit from Tabernacle. Accompanying the 
girls home. Exhibition of amatory excitement. Trans- 
ition of religious emotion. Complete surrender to 
temptation. Remorse, anxiety. Hamilton's return 
home. A sleepless night. Irritable repulses. Change 
in disposition and moral demeanor. First interest in 
girls noticed. Complete change in character to the 
typical features and attributes of the hyperesthetic....58-67 

CHAPTER V. 
Previous worry over effects of overwork augmented by 
second revival experience, causes Mrs. Wheeler to 
consult Dr. Austin. The Evangelist's motive. Path- 
ological effects produced. A social and physical crime. 
Effects depressive, followed by exaltation reaction 
and motor release. Hesitation to believe wrong could 
come from religious practices. The converted remain 
slaves to the church. Ignorance of crowd psychology. 
Production of Hyperesthesia. Permanent reduction 
of resistance. Advice to intercept the follow-up 
agents. Disturbance of mental balance and poise. In- 
stability the forerunner of manic-depressive insanity. 
Exampled production of biologic tetanus. Reaction 
tetanies of Evangelist's bombardments. Confusion 
and defect of ideation from excessive sense stimuli. 
Mental confusion, discontinuity, and in-coordination, 
from jumbles of vagaries and mysticisms. Percep- 
tion in inverse ratio to emotional expression. Falsi- 
fications of ideas from intense emotions of sorrow 
and fear. Confusion and defect of perceptions from 
intense emotions. No religious significance of sur- 
render of conversions. Other relations. Pure per- 
ception. Motor disproportion of perceptive excesses. 
Thrills. Evangelistic instability and emotionalism. 
Produced predisposition. Relegation of hysteria to 
faith-healing cults. Hysteric characteristics. America, 
the land of revivals and neurasthenia. Co-relation 
between corruption, vices, and religious emotionalism. 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Pages 

Emotion a physical manifestation. Causes. Disequi- 
librium between mental and physical functions. The 
simplest form of response phenomena. Inequalities. 
Fear of knowledge disturbing to beliefs. Progression 
because of survival 68-86 

CHAPTER VI. 
Late retirement necessitated by mental disability in school- 
work. A sleepless night. An intruder in the apartment. 
Captured at the pistol's mouth. Identification of Tom 
Young. Disarming. The wrong apartment. The 
heart to heart talk. The product of multiple con- 
version. The religiousness of the criminal. The 
yeggman oath and its sanctity. A yegg from youth. 
The confession. The confidential talk. The condi- 
tional freedom. Yegg fraternal benevolences. Yegg- 
men's political and social relations. Gangmen's polit- 
ical functions. Obligations of yeggs. The solemn 
oath. The departure. The aftermath prostration. 
The verification of the paradoxical relation of religion 
and crime 87-99 

CHAPTER VII. 

Wanderlust possesses Hamilton to seek another revival ad- 
venture and a companion. Beating the rush to the 
Tabernacle. The intimidation of the unchurched. En- 
ergy release of singing. Respiratory conformation to 
hymn rhythm. Disturbance of respiratory rhythm. 
The rapid fire of the Evangelist. Intimidation by 
pointed invective. Oppression and disturbances of 
breathing and allied symptoms. Emotional depression. 
Symptoms of respiratory and general distress. In- 
crease of frequency of Evangelist's bombardment. 
Helplessness to accommodate to the imposed condi- 
tions. Varieties of emotions successively excited. 
Universal condemnations. Sensations of anguish, 
giddiness, and faintness. Stumbling and sobbing 
breathing. Mental clouding. Drunken symptoms. 
Final collapse. Removal to the Tabernacle hospital. 
Accompanied home in taxi. Dr. Austin called next 
morning. The recital. General symptoms of hyper- 
esthesia 100-109 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Perfect physical and mental specimen of young manhood 
at beginning of Revival. Temporary depletion only, 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

afforded the necessary susceptibility to conversion. 
The man-destroying revival crime. Induced super- 
susceptibility to future religious emotionalism. Hu- 
man amenability to crowd psychology which caters 
only to the senses. Mad stampedes of animals. Stam- 
peding of human crowds to mad acts. Wars, out- 
rages, and crimes of fanaticisms. Agitators rather 
than the crowds to blame. Need of severe penal 
laws. Erroneous concepts of products of mental func- 
tion. Thought not a spiritual or divine entity, not a 
projection but a reaction. Wilfulness versus the will. 
The will, consciousness, and attention. Misinterpre- 
tation of physical-motive force. Violence of impul- 
sive, rash, and criminal acts. Insane exhibition of 
strength. Violent stimulus of evangelistic effects. 
Peculiarity of conversion. Its vicarious expression 
of vented energy. The determining direction of fixed 
delusions. The influence of simple suggestion on the 
converted. Delusion* attained by prolonged fixation 
of religious ideas. Veritable delusions of religious 
convictions and "experiences." Puberty the predom- 
inant age of conversions. Induced delusion of sex- 
ual impulse. Special susceptibility and liability of 
children to emotions. Low tissue density as the basic 
factor. Taking advantage of the young. Religion 
and lust. Special susceptibility of adolescence. Chil- 
dren should keep away from revivals. Motive to 
inculcate convictions and prejudices when least com- 
petent to judge. Theologian Professor advises har- 
vest of the young. Medical authority warns against 
tampering with emotions of youth, lest religious fer- 
vor reappears as sexual immorality. Leading posi- 
tion of the Evangelist in American Churchdom. Com- 
plete surrender of clergy to the Evangelist. Morbid- 
ity of any action that disturbs the equilibrium. Sub- 
normal status of what passes as supernatural. Mor- 
bidity and viciousness of all that unbalances and dis- 
turbs mental equilibrium. The normal man well 
balanced and self-controlled. Instability increases 
when cases progress despite treatment. Super-sensi- 
tiveness and reaction violence typical expressions of 
tissue softness of sedentary habits. Restlessness. 
Paroxysmal and spasm-like reaction. Prone to tet- 
any. Tissue density basis of emotion. Emotionalism 

9 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Pages 

a status of incapacity, not of excess of motor force. 
Exhausting waste of energy. Convulsions, a status 
of broken integrity of tonic contraction. Absurd defi- 
nitions of emotion. Impulsive expressions of emo- 
tion. Explosive attributes. Antithesis of thought and 
emotion. Emotion and digestion. Piety and bilious- 
ness. Intelligence a product of nutrition. Emotional 
discontinuity of thought. Delusional index of lunacy. 
Morbid manifestations not Providential or Divine. 
Revivals make business for the saloon and brothel, 
and inmates for insane asylums. The Evangelist the 
prototype of the charlatan. Contagion of emotion 
from the Evangelist. Designed accentuation of emo- 
tion for contagious effect. Evangelist pays the price 
of his own emotionalism. Effect of physical fixation 
on its mental reproduction. Extraordinary methods 
of holding attention of congregation. Object and ef- 
fect of great revival choirs. Copyrighted hymns of 
highest emotional quality. Fixed eye and bated 
breath. Importance of stimulation minus reaction 
pending outburst of the overwrought. The silent 
struggle kinship to stage hypnotism. The false in- 
terpretation 110-133 

CHAPTER IX. 
Determination of material basis of revival operations. Re- 
vivalism mass hypnotism, the audience the crowd, 
subject to crowd impressions and contagion. Low 
level of crowd psychology. The individual swallowed 
up in the crowd. Evangelical adaptation of hypno- 
tism. Its success and harm. Importance of direction 
of effect on the will. Religious versus medical hyp- 
notism as to breaking down the will. Revival con- 
version an introduction into the subnormal, not the 
supernatural. Emotion revered as religious exper- 
ience. Over-reaction of low density tissues of the 
organs of special sense. Contractile tissue tetany 
from violent sense impressions, as physical basis of 
subconscious states. Analogous phenomena of hypno- 
tism. Inhibition of deliberation. Typical cases ana- 
logous to hypnotised subject. Individual subordina- 
tion to crowd consciousness. Catalepsy. Impulse un- 
tempered or controlled by reason productive of crim- 
inal and unethical conduct. Dissociation of conscious- 

10 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Pages 
ness. Double personalities. Subconscious awe and 
veneration leading to inhibition. Theory of pan- 
organism seat of mentality. Recapitulation. Exces- 
sive recoils. Motor expression precedes deliberation. 
Hyperesthetics and hysterics in general are rash act- 
ors. Examples of undeliberated behavior 134-147 

CHAPTER X. 
All factors of mental morbidity predispose to religion. Ex- 
emplification of the great war. Emotional release of 
tetany of grief. Emotional grief merges into emo- 
tional religion. Emotional identity of various tvpes. 
Pan-emotionalism of conversion. Morbidity of pro- 
cess of religious conversion. Artificial mental aber- 
ration. Morbid evangelical exciting cause superim- 
posed upon known predisposing causes of morbidity. 
Subconscious automatons of perfect military ma- 
chines. Absence of morality of subconscious subwak- 
ing ego. Psychology of the Germans in peace and 
war. Criminal attributes of the subconscious auto- 
maton as illustrated in the German soldier. Equalled 
only by the subject of religious zeal and fanaticism. 
History's chamber of horrors. Emotionalism, the 
bane of American politics. Duty of medical profes- 
sion. Governments, like crowds, less moral and eth- 
ical than individuals. Physical basis of decadence of 
princely and aristocratic governments. Breaking the 
will of soldiers. Basis of brutality. Confusion a 
factor of mental deficiency. Importance of mental 
differentiation and definition. Deceptions and hallu- 
cinations. Discrimination. Importance of fluctuations 
of superficial circulation. Analogy of hyperemia and 
flush of religious exaltation. Religious hallucina- 
tions. Too sacred for reason. Evangelists as cham- 
pions of public morals and uplift. The relation of 
the cardinal sins to historical religion. Dancing as a 
religious rite. Christian Science. Discussion of the 
physical basis of revival hymnology. The oxygen 
factor. Choir psychology. The rhythmic factors. 
The emotion as an effect. Collective and universal 
emotion. Psychology of repetition of affirmation. Mo- 
tor element of emotion. The singing congregation. 
Repetition of recitation. Psychology of hymn verses 
and music. Large choirs of revivals. Elements of men- 

11 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Pages 

tal sweeping. The Choir Master's spin of the human 
top. The explosive instability goal of Evangelist. 
Special susceptibility of the musical to evangelism. 
The unemotional not musical. Evil psychic- influence 
of evil Virtuosi. Former proscription of music in 
churches. Superficial innocence of singing hymns. 
Supposition of wholesomeness of everything present- 
ed in the name of religion. The curse of what unfits 
man and is not recognized as such. Present demands 
for supreme fitness. The military unfitness of the 
hyperesthetics from various causes. Inability to with- 
stand modern warfare. Early mental collapse of ex- 
cessive reactions and lack of stamina. Cowardice of 
innate timidity. Lack of resolution and courage. Un- 
reliablity of natural disloyalty and treacheries. Rest- 
lessness and discontent as elements of disaffection. 
Vacillation. Unscrupulousness and malingering. Un- 
reliability of bad veracity. Incompetence of general 
weakness of character. Incapacitation by insomnia. 
As a factor of mental breakdown. Incapacity to con- 
form to mass action. Similarity to revival order of 
symptoms. Wisdom of Gen. Funston in prohibiting 
emotionalizing of troops. Many rendered militarily 
unfit by revival 148-179 

CHAPTER XI. 

Dr. Austin introduces his fellow alienist : Dr. McLean. In- 
ordinate cost of maintenance of institutional insane, 
and the great tax infliction on an innocent public 
made necessary by permitting the production of human 
derelicts. Necessity for allaying all apprehension of 
patient. Early American Revivals. Present Evange- 
list simulates the insane Davenport. Complete and 
careful examination of the entire body and physical 
reactions. Mental and emotional causation of most 
serious diseases. Sad error of public concept that 
diseases of mental causation are necessarily trivial, 
or are curable simply by change of mental attitude or 
religious belief. Danger of inciting fear, especially in 
children. Craving for rest and peace of converts 
leads them to Faith-healing cults in large numbers. 
Prospects of benefit from faith-healing. Hypnotic 
revival methods most potent, yet less so than those of 
subwaking hypnotism. The effect of fear and terror 

12 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Pages 
in vacating the blood vessels of the superficial tissues 
and thus asphyxiating them. Ignorance of faith- 
healers. Characteristics of modern Evangelists. Ear- 
splitting violence and reaction traumatism. The sense 
of conviction of sin one of depression. Sunday ac- 
credited the most successful sin convincer. Remark- 
able capacity of sense organs to withstand violence. 
Reaction tissues beyond tetanized by same degree of 
sensorial violence. Physical basis of abeyance of de- 
liberative faculties from violence of sense impulses. 
Separation of upper and lower levels of conscious- 
ness. Dual personalities. Intercommunication of sep- 
arated egos. Latent impressions of subconscious 
groups. The planchette and hypnotism instruments of 
exploration. Law of inverse proportion of emotion 
and reason. Great crime of fostering emotion and 
inhibiting intellection. Especially pernicious to Dem- 
ocracies. Especial need of reason in Democracies. 
Menace to communities of individuals bereft of rea- 
son. Amenability of the over-credulous to the sway 
of demagogues. Especial susceptibility of women. 
Impulsive loquacity. Intuition pictured as a divine 
faculty. Parallelism of intuition and impulsive ex- 
pression. Analogy of the alcoholic. Role of im- 
mature perceptions in subsequent deliberation. High 
velocity of transmission of violent sense impressions 
of defective mentality. Imperfect perceptions of every 
imperfect deliberation are provided to interact with 
and modify future mental operations. The same in- 
herent defect is responsible for imperfectly modified 
perceptions and imperfect intellection utilizing such 
imperfect perceptions. Either acting singly produces 
the 1 same effect 180-206 

CHAPTER XII. 
Indivisibility of the attention. Integrity of the attention 
dependent upon unity. Functionally incapacitated to 
the extent that it is broken or dismembered. Cloud- 
ing of the mental processes corresponding to confus- 
ion or distraction of the attention. The attention the 
center of convergence. Concentration of the attention 
a focus and unification of attention. Serious import 
of mental diversions and digressions. Mental acts 
composites of current sense impressions and past ones 

13 



The Conversion of Hamilton Whezler 

coordinated. Virtue of singleness of theme, of the 
attention, and of consciousness. The vice of disrup- 
tion. Short-comings of weak sense impressions at- 
taining only subconscious levels. Conscious repre- 
sentations dependent upon dynamic reaction force. 
Weak representations attain outward expression dur- 
ing periods of abeyance or inhibition of stronger ones. 
Conscious mentality the group occupying the atten- 
tion. All conscious thoughts attain head inversely 
to the exclusion of others. Latent influence of sub- 
conscious groups. Abnormal supremacies of sub- 
conscious groups in outward expression. Objective 
and subjective operations. Personifications and dei- 
fications of the mind as an entity, instead of a func- 
tion. Confusing terminology of "subconscious mind" 
and "objective and subjective mind." Non-recogni- 
tion of representations of inadequate strength. Mis- 
interpretation of subconscious representations first 
commanding the attention. Forcible impression of 
false perceptions and irrational ideas. Confusion of 
perception and incoherence of ideas. Discontinuity of 
thought. Equal applicability to the mind of the laws 
of matter. Unification and integrity of integration. 
The mind as a functional product of animal matter. 
Dependence of progress in morbid psychology upon 
recognition of underlying factors. New emphasis 
upon the fact of unity in mental functions. Special 
sense hyperesthesia as a typical factor. Amnesia as 
a developed type. Producible by shock and trauma- 
tism. The mental levels of the conscious and subcon- 
scious groups. Superior and inferior standards. 
Weak perceptions not reaching the conscious atten- 
tion not modified and qualified. Subconscious im- 
pressions gained by singing hymns. Insidious sub- 
conscious impressions. Process of "queering." Sub- 
conscious opinions subordinated to full conscious 
reason. On freewill. Disciplinary repression to sub- 
consciousness. Blindness to sequence. Subordination 
by subconscious automatonization. Potency of influ- 
ence of multiplicity of repetition of subconscious im- 
pressions. Exemplification in children of unconscious 
impressions. Religious applications and uses in com- 
petitive applications. Possibility of great wrongs. 
German applications. Subordination of the question 

14 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Pages 

of prerogative. Intrigue versus fear. Religious hys- 
teria and fanaticism menace of peace. Motive for 
crime. Religious devotion parallel with status as 
menace to community. The millenium when religion 
shall be purged of supernaturalism. The religion and 
institutions of the future. The new lectureship teach- 
ers. Disappearance of hyperesthesia and anti-social 
classes with the establishment of institutions of this 
world to supersede the degradations of present relig- 
ions of supernaturalism. Disappearance of interna- 
tional conflicts - 207-230 

■ CHAPTER XIII. 

Drunken delirium producible in alcoholics by violent emo- 
tion. Craving alcoholic liquors following strong emo- 
tions. Pathologic emotions morbid exaggerations of 
preambles of normal acts. Important role of alcohol in 
history of all religions. Miraculous creation of wine 
by Jesus. Excesses of the Agapae. Free use by 
church leaders. Renewal of religious ecstacies by al- 
cohol and narcotics. Sensation suspended or extin- 
guished by ecstacy. Visions, hallucinations, and con- 
vulsions in morbid train of events. Collateral symp- 
toms. Bellicose methods of hysterio-emotional in- 
dividuals. Appeals to emotions and passion instead 
of reason. Conviction by affirmation, repetition, and 
emphasis instead of by argument. As demagogues 
and social parasites. Role of alcohol in production of 
emotionalism. The campaign of education of the 
medical profession. The elimination of the sensorial 
causes. Religion as a cause of insanity. Hindering 
intellectual development and weakening moral char- 
acter by beliefs that prohibit intelligent inquiry. Be- 
liefs that transcend and contradict reason leading to 
extravagant delusions. Instability of mind and over- 
throw of mental balance by religious emotional ex- 
citement and extraordinary emotional displays. Ultra- 
violent evangelism. Sensorial violence and exhaus- 
tion. Obscurantism and mysticism, bewilderments and 
distractions. Violent repressions. "Blessed are the 
intoxicated." Analogy of religious and alcoholic in- 
toxications. Comparisons between alcoholic and re- 
ligious insanity. Religion separate from morals. De- 
feat of mental coherence and coordination by relig- 

15 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ious obscurantism, obfuscation, and resulting bewil- 
derment. Sanity as a state of successful adaptation 
and adaptability. Man's duty to be true to knowledge 
and fact. Obsessions of false ideas beginnings of 
unbalanced states. Falsification of senses. Uncon- 
trolled imagination and love of illusion leading to de- 
lusion. General expressions of religious intoleranct 
Fanaticism a degree of insanity. Supernaturalism 
fosters obliviousness to material fact. Belief in the 
unreal destroys adaptability to the real. Abolition of 
differentiation by teaching that the tangible is in* 
tangible. Lack of initiation due to crushing independ- 
ent thought by fear. Weakness of independent 
thought due to persecution of honest individual opin- 
ion. Elimination of those who do not progress. 
The elimination of the fanatical Turk. Results of 
false perception and conception, of emotionalism, hys- 
teria, fanaticism, and eroticism fostered by religion. 
All higher mentality dependent upon elaboration. Sus- 
tained and complex deliberations necessary to ripe 
judgment. Ethics and morality versus Emotionalism. 
Criminal liability of the political and industrial insta- 
bility of emotional derelicts. Folly of religious emo- 
tionalizing of industrial towns. Danger of trusting 
and obeying the emotions. Crowd emotion of riots. 
Emotionalism not productive of good citizenship. Fix- 
ed ideas of blind dogma. Obsessions supplant reason. 
Identity of reason and morality. Emotional control 
of men, women, and children. The terrible price paid 
for impassioned emotional excitations. Susceptibility 
not a solace. Religiousness of innate criminals. Predis- 
position of alcoholics to convulsive conversions. Affin- 
ity for Christian Science. Emotional contagion from 
Evangelist. Evangelism for broken-down sports. 
Pathology of intensive effort on incoherent and in- 
coordinate narrative. Unbalance from defeated at- 
tempts to reason out the unreasonable of Scripture. 
Obfuscation and obscurantism fatal to acute and sub- 
tle minds. The insult to church members of the re- 
vival method of recruiting its membership. Broken 
wills, enfeebled volitions, emotionalism, and prone- 
ness to insanity of the victims of the revival harvest. 
First steps toward the discoordination of the unbal- 
anced state. Paradox of the church as an institution 

16 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Pages 
of ethical culture. Religion, a foe of Republics. 
Church allegiance stronger than political. Breaking 
down of separation of Church and State in America. 
Unwise repressive laws of ecclesiastical political pres- 
tige. Vices of ecclesiastical bodies. Reactionary su- 
premacy. The position of the modern Protestant 
minister. The restraint exercised by the body politic. 
The group inferior to the individual minister. The 
revival the product of the group. How long will it 
continue? The analogy of the Evangelist and the 
butcher. The lazy Pastor's method. Religious pre- 
ferment. The un-American premium on creed and 
affiliation. Opportunity open for reform. Changes 
in the capacity of priest and minister. Opening as 
secular teachers. Need of universal teaching of sub- 
jects of higher education. Prostitution of religion to 
ulterior commercial ends. Religious hypnotism used 
to separate individuals from their fortunes 231-261 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Attainment of the goal. Hamilton's triumph in overcoming 
all drawbacks and graduating. Mrs. Wheatcroft com- 
ing to her senses. The disappointment of ambitions 
of vanity. Late realization that her apparent admir- 
ers had not honorable intentions. Religious expres- 
sion of self-love. Egoism. Dr. Austin admits the 
real gravity of the ordeal through which Hamilton 
had now safely passed. Religious indifference where 
harm is not involved. Necessity of instruction to per- 
mit of proper interpretation of religious teaching. 
Correction of popular errors regarding the use of the 
imagination. Confusion of imagination and thought. 
Unmodified imaginations the bane of the world. 
Christian Scientists as would-be Psychologists. Sci- 
entific and educated men Evolutionists. The survival 
of the fittest. The law of evolution one of Natural 
Selection. The survival of religion one of Artificial 
Selection. Many undesirable survivals by Artificial 
Selection. Survival of religions other than the Chris- 
tian. Exemplification of Artificial Selection in the 
history of Christianity. Artificial destruction of unbe- 
lievers. Error of interpretation of negative position 
on immortality. The wish the father of the thought. 
The first law of Nature. The egoistic desire. The 
physical basis. The passion of criminals. The posi- 

17 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Pages 

tion of the medical profession. The obvious deduc- 
tion regardless of aspirations and ambitions. The 
wisdom of Bacon and Scripture. Hamilton's regimen. 
Mrs. Wheeler's anxious moments. Dr. Austin's 
devotion and skill. The newspapers as im- 
parters of forbidden news. The suicide of Edward 
Stone counterbalanced by a talk. The crisis with the 
Hunts. Peril of matrimonial expectations. The ex- 
ternal evidences of restored health and vigor. The 
resealing of the engagement 262-276 

APPENDICES 
Appendix A. Evidence regarding relation of age, puberty, 

and conversion 277-278 

Appendix B. Kraepelin on delusional ideas of sin 278-279 

Appendix C. Evidence of material physical basis of the 

mental function- 279-280 

Appendix D. Disturbances and dissensions among early 
New England churches caused by Davenport and 
other violent and unruly itinerant evangelists 280-282 

Appendix E. Source and sustinance of the Shakers from 
evangelical church revivals. Attractions for the con- 
verted 283-285 



18 



Introduction 

THIS volume is offered as a voluntary contribu- 
tion to the Mental Hygiene Movement which 
was begun in 1912, in an "endeavor to reduce 
the alarming amount of mental impairment in the 
United States by making public careful statements of 
the causes of mental diseases, by securing earlier med- 
ical treatment, and by preventive social service with 
individuals threatened with mental breakdown." 

In the words of a writer for the movement: 

"Mental unsoundness is becoming a serious national 
handicap and all interested in the welfare of humanity 
will welcome this opportunity to learn how the mental 
health of the nation may best be protected." 

The chief objects of this commendable movement 
are: 

"To work for the conservation of mental health; to 
help raise the standard of care for those in danger of 
developing mental disorder or actually insane; 
to promote the study of mental disorders in all their 
forms and relations and to disseminate knowledge con- 
cerning their causes, treatment and prevention ; to ob- 
tain from every source reliable data regarding condi- 
tions and methods of dealing with mental disorders ; 
to enlist the aid of the Federal Government so far as 
may seem desirable; to co-ordinate existing agencies 
and help organize in each State in the Union an allied, 
but independent Society for Mental Hygiene, similar 
to the existing Connecticut Society for Mental Hy- 
giene." 

19 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

The author takes pleasure in adding what, in the 
published opinion of the Committee on Mental Hygiene 
of the New York State Charities Aid Society, each 
person can do in the Mental Hygiene Movement : 

1. "Inform yourself thoroughly regarding the 
causes of mental disease. 

2. "Help to make the facts you now possess gener- 
ally known. 

3. "Refrain from those acts and habits which are 
liable to result in mental disorder. 

4. "Speak and think of insanity as a disease not 
as a crime. 

5. "If a relative, friend, or acquaintance seems to 
be suffering from bad physical or mental habits, take 
steps to see that he is given the information you possess 
and receives proper medical care without delay. 

6. "Inform yourself of the modern methods of 
caring for the insane, and lend your voice and influ- 
ence to all projects which make for better or earlier 
care of those suffering from mental diseases." 

The preparation of such a work as is enclosed be- 
tween the covers of this book has been attended with 
many difficulties. The conversational and narrative 
style of its presentation has been adopted solely as a 
means to an end, namely of facilitating the presenta- 
tion of the involved profound problems of biology, 
physiology, sociology, and religion, in a form easy of 
comprehension by non-technical readers, and which will 

20 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

perhaps be more realistic, interesting, and attractive 
than the dry facts would be if presented in a technical 
scientific treatise. 

The clothing with human interest of the facts of the 
injurious effects upon the converted of evangelistic 
propaganda, by portraying with some dramatic con- 
struction a real life experience, it is hoped may bring 
their significance and importance home to the reader 
with a vividness which the didactic works already be- 
fore the public have apparently failed to do, a conclu- 
sion which seems warranted by the fact that evangelists 
continue their destructive work, ignoring completely 
the full exposes of their harmful effects which have 
preceded this one. 

Revivalism appears to need an "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
as it were, which will so surround the subject with 
human interest and realism that some degree of com- 
passion may be elicited in behalf of the victims of this 
nefarious practice. No pretensions are made for this 
book as a work of fiction. 

In view of the difficulties encountered, which have 
been many, in making of this work a simple presenta- 
tion of some of the most intricate, complex, and ob- 
scured physical processes of psychology and psychi- 
atry, the author craves the patience of the reader, and 
the limitation of his criticism to the truths set forth 
and any results that might accrue from a sincere en- 
deavor to elucidate much that heretofore has been 
relegated to obscurantism and obf uscation by men who 

21 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

have regarded the subject as a kind of "forbidden 
fruit" and a field "where angels fear to tread." 

It is more particularly the recent excesses in this 
field of the pathology of religion which have led the 
present author into print, trusting that he may break 
the ice and be followed by abler pens in this new 
domain of morbid psychology, which may thus be 
created as a subject of popular as well as scientific 
interest. 

Perhaps, in the face of efforts at the suppression of 
public reports of insanity as direct results of revival 
emotionalism, it will be quite impossible to produce 
anything like complete statistics, but we have news- 
paper reports of resulting insanity from Omaha, Neb., 
Wheeling, Va., Portsmouth, Canton, and Columbus, 
Ohio, Newcastle and Philadelphia, Pa., and Syra- 
cuse, New York. The highest number reported from 
this list is fourteen distracted from Newcastle, Penn- 
sylvania. At Lima, Ohio, is reported the death from 
over-excitement, of a Methodist presiding elder on 
the tabernacle platform, and at McKeesport, Pa., ac- 
cording to report, a former mayor fell dead from the 
heart failure of over-excitement following his partici- 
pation in "revival" meetings; Boston and New York 
are yet to hear from with any completeness. 

A noteworthy peculiarity of the reports of these 
cases is the greater prominence given to the person 
of the evangelist in the disordered ravings of the in- 
sane, than to the thought of God, Christ, or other 

22 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

characters of the Christian theology. A fascination 
for the personality of the evangelist appears a dis- 
tinctive and predominant characteristic. 

An interesting case reported in the Syracuse Herald 
of January 3, 1916, was that of Edward H. Buchenau, 
who, following conversion by Mr. Sunday on January 
2nd., murdered his mother. He admitted in his con- 
fession to the police that he committed the crime in 
accordance with Mr. Sunday's teachings, with which 
he became imbued as a frequent attendant and worker. 
The following quoted from a book of copyrighted 
sermons is supposed to be the subject of the morbid 
obsession : 

"I sometimes think, almost, that it might be a God- 
send to many a community if it could be swept by 
typhoid fever or pneumonia or scarlet fever just after 
a good revival and before people have a chance to 
backslide." And again : "It is a good thing that I am 
not God for fifteen minutes. If I were I would fill 
your newspapers with obituaries and fill freight cars 
with the dead." 

This insane criminal at Syracuse, according to re- 
port, confessed: 

"When I went to bed last night I was thinking of 
mother and wondering if it would not be better for 
me to kill her. 

"After breakfast she stood with her back to me 
and I thought of the heavy day's work before her and 
the thought came to me that she would be much hap- 
pier in heaven. 

23 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"I suppose I should not have done it, but ever since 
I hit the trail at the Billy Sunday meetings I have 
had a different idea of God and life." 

The above brief sketch of the more extreme results 
of revivalism is here presented to show that we have 
not selected an extreme, but an average case, as the 
subject of this work. 

The very universality and profundity of religion 
makes it a power in the community. If this power be 
for evil incalculable harm is done. Government sta- 
tistics show that nearly forty percent of our total 
population are enrolled as members of some religious 
organization, of which perhaps one fourth are active 
ones. Even admitting that many are children from 
eight years and upwards, and that many are included 
in this number who have removed, died, or have drift- 
ed away to freethought, or onto the rolls of other 
churches entailing duplication, the well organized social 
influence is great, as is also the political. 

Experience teaches us that American authorities 
will not act in defense of their unorganized consti- 
tuents until the wildest excesses are committed and the 
greatest irreparable damage is done. We must await 
the reaction which must come when people attain to a 
realization of the total injury done in the wholesale 
manufacture of delinquents, neurotics, and lunatics. 

Possibly when the public's attention is directed to 
the increase in taxes incident to the enormous increase 
in State institutional insane, which in New York State 

24 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

has already increased twice as fast as the population, 
they will demand remedial action of the powers that 
be. It is the same old story — we are a democracy with 
all officials and legislators subject to public suffrage 
and fearful of incurring the enmity of any organized 
body until a body of voters greater than they demand 
it. 

If we are to judge religion by the ultimate results 
of revivals, we must conclude that it is a disease, and 
the medical profession must act through health author- 
ities to abolish and eradicate it as a prophylactic meas- 
ure, as they would eliminate any other parasitic disease 
or cause of mental alienation. 

It is an obvious fact that, whereas the men who 
conducted the earlier revivals, which were regarded as 
great awakenings, from a half to two centuries ago, 
saw their injurious effects and not only discontinued 
them but wrote books on their grave consequences, 
cautioning future generations against them; and since, 
moreover, that many able works on the psychological 
phenomena of Christianity, the psychology and path- 
ology of religious experience, etc., have been publish- 
ed which go into minute detail of the action, benign 
and malign, of evangelistic conversion, yet present day 
evangelists have apparently gone into it with their 
eyes open, and regardless of anticipated results which 
they provide emergency hospitals to contend with. 

I am indebted to the following authors for valuable 
data in normal, morbid, and religious psychology : 

25 ' 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Henry Maudsley, ■ Pathology of Mind. 

Charles Fere, Pathology of the Emotions. 

Josiah Moses, Pathological Aspects of Religions. 

Josiah Morse, The Psychology and Neurology of Fear. 

Angelo Mosso, Fear. 

Boris Sidis, The Psychology of Suggestion. 

Boris Sidis, Mental Dissociations. 

Edward S. Ames, Psychology of Religion. 

G. B. Cutten, Psychological Phenomena of Christianity. 

William Hirsch, Religion and Civilization, Conclusions of 
a Psychiatrist. 

F. M. Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals. 

F. M. Davenport, The Religious Revival and the New 
Evangelism, The Outlook, Apr. 8, 1905. 

Theodore Schroeder, Religion and Sensualism as Con- 
nected by Clergymen. Amer. Jour, of Religious Psychology 
and Education, May 1908. 

Theodore Schroeder, Erotogenesis of Religion. Jour, of 
Religious Psychology, Oct. 1912. 

Theodore Schroeder, Adolescence and Religion. Jour, of 
Religious Psychology, Apr. 1913. 

Theodore Schroeder, Erotogenetic Interpretation of Re- 
ligion. Jour, of Religious Psychology, Jan. 1914. 

Josiah Morse, Religion and Immorality. Amer. Jour, of 
Religious Psychology and Education, July 1911. 

Edward Carpenter, Connection between Homo-Sexuality 
and Divination. Amer. Jour, of Religious Psychology and 
Education, July 1911. 

Charles W. Super, The Psychology of Christian Hymns. 
Am. Jour, of Religious Psychology and Education, May 1908. 

James H. Leuba, Fear, Awe and Sublime in Religion. 
Am. Jour, of Religious Psychology and Education, Mar. 1906. 

J. S. VanTeslaar, The Problems and Present Status of 
Religious Psychology. Jour, of Religious Psychology, Nov. 
1914. see also 

Homer Wakefield, Physiology and Pathology of the Emo- 
tions, Medical Record, Aug. 22, 1908 : The Tissue Density Fac- 
tor, New York Medical Journal, July 27 and Aug. 3, 1912. 

In consideration of the fact that it has been the past 

policy of certain militant clericals to retaliate against 

speakers and writers who have had the temerity to 

26 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

criticise their ecclesiastical programs, to heap abuse and 
malignant invective upon them personally, rather than 
squarely to meet the issues of their statements, the 
present pen name has been used with a view of direct- 
ing the criticism to the subject and contents of the 
work exclusively, and the judgment solely to its in- 
trinsic merit or demerit. 

In the preparation and publication of this work, it 
has been the constant objective and endeavor of the 
Author and of the Publisher to set forth merely an 
expose of a malicious institution and a harmful prop- 
aganda, which shall be, on our part, entirely devoid 
of personal malice. The endeavor is to depict causes 
and effects rather than any defamation of character or 
personal slander of those engaged in evangelism as a 
business. 

It is hoped that anyone essaying to discuss or defend 
it will also confine his arguments to the merits or de- 
merits of the theme, to the exclusion of personal at- 
tack. If more evidence is demanded to sustain our 
statements of existing conditions, they will be forth- 
coming. It is our conscientious ambition to convince 
those engaged in evangelistic propaganda, as much as 
general public opinion, of the great wrong which is 
being done the populace of our country in the name 
and with the approval of an institution that assumes 
to stand for moral uplift, and thereby cause them to di- 
vert their energies to more useful and healthful en- 
deavor. THE AUTHOR. 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheda 

Chapter I. 

HAMILTON WHEELER had just passed the 
eighteenth milestone of his life. He was tall, 
:; aight, somewhat slender, and those who 
knew him thought him handsome. This, however, was 
in part due to a charm of manner and expression that 
proved seductive to all who came in contact with him. 
His language was characterized by that clean-cut enun- 
ciation which everyone admires, or perhaps it is that 
they admire those who exhibit it. Hamilton, the only 
child of a fond mother, had been brought up by her; 
Gnly as one can be who is the exclusive subject of a 
life's devotion. Many of his friends who had been 
witnesses of his mother's absorbing love for him had 
expressed surprise that he had not been spoiled: yet 
closer observation explained that. Xo one with such 
a mother would be spoiled. Her love was manifested 
in a different way. It was a compelling rather than a 
yielding love whose object was not indulged or shielded 
in any wrong act, and moreover Mrs. Wheeler was al- 
. s strictly honest with her son, as with everyone with 
whom she came in contact. Her life was an ever pres- 
ent example to him. She did not hesitate to correct him 
in manner or speech, and he was in constant training. 
She was always so kind, polite, sympathetic, and ben- 
evolent toward him he would indeed have been an in- 
grate to have been anything else than what he was. 
He even unconsciously reflected her superb character. 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Mr. Wheeler, a well born gentleman, with every 
promise of a prosperous and happy life, had suddenly 
died when Hamilton was three years of age. He had 
already experienced an enviable series of business pro- 
motions, accompanied with parallel salary raises, when 
he was suddenly taken away by pneumonia. After all 
the adjustments attendant upon the new order of things, 
Mrs. Wheeler found herself with a modest income, 
which barely, by frugality and elimination of many 
pleasures to which she had been accustomed, was made 
sufficient to meet the exigencies of a respectable living 
and the bringing up and education of her son. 

Ten thousand dollars in life insurance, together with 
but about fifteen thousand of savings of Mr. Wheeler's 
curtailed career, had to be conservatively invested in 
order to combine some degree of safety with the pos- 
sibilities of income yield. Living in respectable neigh- 
borhoods in New York City is not cheap, and some 
time had to be devoted to the tiresome and tedious or- 
deal of looking up a new place of residence. A place 
at once within her financial grasp, in desirable and 
healthful localities, and convenient to' educational in- 
stitutions, was not easy to find. Many apartments in 
which one or two rooms contained outside windows, 
had twice as many that opened onto courts that were 
as long on distracting noises by day and disturbing ones 
at night, as they were short of sunlight and fresh air. 

After many weary days of tramping about from 
one offering to another, and viewing place after place 

30 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

which caused her to shudder at the thought that any- 
one would be expected to tolerate, and notwithstand- 
ing the strenuous efforts of janitors, caretakers, and 
realty agents to induce her to rent quarters that she did 
not want, she finally located and secured a delightful 
little six room apartment on Harlem Heights, near to 
Columbia University. Here she found an environment 
that, for charm of natural topography, scenery, archi- 
tectural beauty, and intellectual atmosphere, is probably 
unsurpassed in the United States. 

This glorious residential section of New York, ris- 
ing high above the tidal waters of the Hudson, capped 
as it is by the largest University in the world, bounded 
on the East by the beautiful Morningside Park, with 
its walled bluffs, from which one can overlook the 
housetops of Harlem, and on the West by the fashion- 
able Riverside Drive Park, the picturesque Hudson 
river and the rugged Palisades beyond, has an irre- 
sistible appeal for the poetical and romantic side of 
one's nature. 

Hamilton Wheeler was reared in this fairyland sec- 
tion of the great American Metropolis. Daily, when 
the weather permitted, from his earliest memory, his 
mother took him by the hand and led him to the Drives 
or Parks, where he would find agreeable playmates 
among the children of the neighborhood who reveled in 
their childish sports, while their mothers, governesses, 
or nurses in the settees, found congenial company 
among the many frequenters of these pleasant Drives 
and Parks. 

31 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Prior to Mr. Wheeler's death, his wealthy employer, 
Mr. Hunt, who was very fond of him, was accustomed 
to urging the Wheelers to the most cordial and intimate 
relations with his family. Invitations to dinners at 
their town house, to theatre parties, after theatre din- 
ners at the leading hotels and restaurants were fre- 
quent, and during the summer when the Hunts were at 
their country place on Long Island, Mrs. Wheeler with 
Hamilton spent several weeks at a time, while Mr. 
Wheeler would go out to spend his Sundays with Mr. 
Hunt. 

During these halcyon days Hamilton and little 
Eleanor Hunt, who was but six months his junior, 
became childish lovers, and much was said, at first in 
jest and later with seriousness, that when they grew 
up a permanent alliance between the Hunt and Wheel- 
er families would be consummated by the marriage of 
these children. Later Mr. Hunt frequently spoke of 
how Hamilton was to be trained by his parents so that 
one day, as the husband of Eleanor, his only 
child, he would succeed himself as the owner of his 
great business and estate. After Mr. Wheeler's death, 
Mr. Hunt assured Mrs. Wheeler that it would make 
no difference with Hamilton's career, and as soon as 
he graduated from College he should at once have a 
responsible position. 

Mr. Wheeler's death made no difference in the social 
relations between the Hunt and Wheeler families at 
any time. The greatest pleasures Mrs. Wheeler and 



32 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Hamilton enjoyed during the period of their modest 
living and deprivation from many things to which 
they had been accustomed during Mr. Wheeler's life- 
time, came from the Hunts ; and Hamilton and Eleanor 
grew closer together as they approached manhood 
and womanhood and the happy day when they would 
unite for life. Hardly a week passed that the Hunts 
did not telephone up some invitation or proposal of 
something to brighten the life of the Wheelers. 

Hamilton also had another great expectation. Mrs. 
Wheeler's uncle, Dr. Austin, had in contemplation no 
other heir of his life's competence than his niece, Mrs. 
Wheeler, and some day it also would be Hamilton's. 
Dr. Austin was as interested in Hamilton as he could 
possibly have been in an own son. He was as anxious 
for him to have every mental and moral training and 
education that any young man could have, and he 
watched closely his general mental and physical de- 
velopment with the most affectionate interest. After 
Mr. Wheeler's death, Dr. Austin's interest became 
more than ever a fatherly one. 

One day, Hamilton, having passed his sixth year, all 
was excitement and exalted anticipation, as the day of 
school opening had arrived, and he was entered in the 
primary department. The nearby Horace Mann 
School was chosen where it was intended that he should 
continue until he had graduated from its High School, 
when he would enter Columbia or Harvard. A few 
weeks later Hamilton's turn had come and the hour 

33 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

was set for his physical examination. There was, how- 
ever, no cause for anxiety. His measurements were 
above the average for a boy of his age, and his lung 
and heart test found nothing wanting. 

Nine years slipped away like a dream, and the end 
of the Spring Semester found Hamilton at fifteen with 
his examinations passed successfully and looking for- 
ward to entering the second year of High School the 
following Autumn. This brought a crisis in the af- 
fairs of Hamilton and his mother, for the school 
authorities had now arranged a separation of the boys 
and girls, and a new school building for the boys had 
been erected near Van Cortlandt Park. Here Hamil- 
ton was destined to go to complete his preparatory 
course, and in order to live convenient to the school, 
Mrs. Wheeler removed to a newly built and build- 
ing section, locating in a desirable modern apartment 
which had just been completed, near to the new school. 

The usual incidents of removal in New York were 
experienced. Thefts, damage to furniture, and over- 
charging by the van men were encountered, followed 
by the stress of replacement, repairs, and getting set- 
tled in the new habitation. After it was all over, how- 
ever, and a respite of a breathing spell was offered, 
the new locality was found a most pleasant one, and 
advantageous in many ways. 

Not the least of these was the proximity to and ac- 
cessibility of the great playground of the city, where 
ice skating in winter and all outdoor sports in summer 

34 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

attract the young people from all parts of the city, 
and athletic contestants and prodigious audiences as- 
semble for great tournaments. Here Hamilton Wheel- 
er found everything to his liking. He was fond of all 
athletic sports, and was a favorite among the boys of 
his class when selections were being made of teams to 
contest in behalf of his class for the honors of vic- 
tory. 

Over two years having swiftly fled, we find Hamil- 
ton engrossed in his Senior year, working hard in prep- 
aration, not only for his approaching examinations for 
graduation, but also for his entrance to college. The 
continuous stress of his labors, involving home work 
late into the night, had so consumed his time that he 
was compelled to abandon much of his outdoor sports, 
and his life became more and more a sedentary one. 
The effects of overwork were manifest. 

Mrs. Wheeler had noticed these indications, and they 
were to her a source of anxiety. Hamilton became rest- 
less and occasionally somewhat irritable. The radiant 
complexion and bright eyes of former years had given 
place to pallor and ocular dullness, occasionally dark 
lines under his eyes. His alert and solicitous mother 
was truly in a quandary. She realized that her boy was 
overdoing, and jeopardizing not only his immediate 
capacity and achievement, but possibly his whole life, 
while on the other hand, should he relax his efforts he 
might fail in his examinations, and thus defer a year 
the completion of his education, which she felt she 
could hardly afford. 

35 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

The cost of living had increased by leaps and bounds 
since the onset of the European war, and her slender 
income had barely sufficed for life's necessities when 
living cost was normal. Moreover, as Hamilton ad- 
vanced in his studies, the tuition fee increased corre- 
spondingly, whereas the saving in rent in removing far- 
ther uptown failed to compensate for it. 

Mrs. Wheeler knew that if Hamilton entered College 
the following Autumn she could make ends meet, ow- 
ing to the fact that College tuitions are always lower 
than those of preparatory schools. However, her so- 
licitude for her son's health caused her to plead with 
him to slacken his pace and take hours of respite in 
rest and recreation; anything to relax the stress of 
his monotonous application, and give him diversion 
and change of scene. But to give up when the goal 
was in sight was against Hamilton's grain, and he si- 
lently vowed to fight to the very end. . 



36 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter II. 

ONE Friday night, after an especially hard week's 
work, and one which had exhibited its dire 
effects on Hamilton in many ways, one of his 
school boy friends, Burton Rogers, telephoned him that 
a group of boys were going to hear the much talked-of 
Evangelist, who was then in town, and asked if he 
would join them. Hamilton's first impulse was to 
decline and explain that he had an immense amount of 
homework to do before Monday, but Mrs. Wheeler, 
placing her hand upon his shoulder, urged him to ac- 
cept, and that to go would do him good. He acceded, 
and went with his friends. 

The Wheelers had always been Episcopalians, and, 
like all Episcopalians, their worship had ever been 
ritualistic and perfunctory. The formalistic services 
were regularly attended and enjoyed. Hamilton had 
been brought up to believe the contents of the Bible as 
the infallible and sacred word of God, as delivered to 
man through a series of revelations by inspiration. 

Hamilton had never experienced such an emotion as 
the Evangelical churches regard as that of conversion, 
or the imbibing of the Holy Spirit. His religion was 
that serene abiding faith in the systemic religion which 
is prescribed as necessary to salvation. This he gave a 
sort of sanction or passive adherence, and he partici- 
pated in the church ritual in the perfunctory and ob- 
livious manner of the average churchman, who thus 

37 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

complies with church ordinance and has no illusions 
regarding emotional religion or of materially sensing 
God, Christ, or the Holy Ghost. 

On the occasion of this his first witness of a revival, 
Hamilton was primarily amused at the fantastic acro- 
batic feats of the Evangelist. Later he was impressed 
by the thunderous expounding of selected passages of 
Holy Writ, in which he had always been taught to be- 
lieve implicitly. Can it be, he thought, that this good 
book does so clearly enunciate demands of people for 
their salvation, such as this Evangelist expounds ? Can 
it be that he had never been born again and of the 
Spirit, now pronounced to be so necessary for salva- 
tion? Then he thought it must not be taken too seri- 
ously. Surely his good mother, and all the good people 
he knew in his church, must know what they are 
about, and that they are safe in the church and creed of 
their choice. Thus musing to himself, his thoughts 
returned to the ludicrous side of it. 

The antics of the Evangelist were so widely con- 
trasting with the dignified and ceremonious deportment 
of the Rectors of his church he could hardly imagine 
the two to be of. the same profession and religion. The 
alternate savage attacks upon persons and institutions, 
on religions and works of which the Evangelist did not 
approve, the vile and abusive language that reached his 
ears shocked every sense of refinement and culture 
that had characterized his training and the atmosphere 
of his life. Surely this man cannot be inspired of God 
or be a vicar of Christ ! 

38 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

On that memorable Friday night, Hamilton was ag- 
itated and convulsed with pent up emotion, brought on 
by the service, which caused him, to feel like giving it 
vent in jumping, shouting, or some other violent out- 
burst. The peculiar emotional sway of the revival 
songs was productive in Hamilton of a high degree of 
impetus and momentum in the form of an active motor 
expression. The abrupt substitution for it was made 
by a succeeding passive immobile state, when seated, 
combined with the intense mental excitement, which 
was produced by the emotion agitating evangelism that 
developed. He was conscious of a change on his own 
part from a positive motor activity to an immobility 
which was negative to the positive agitation of the 
Evangelist, and that he was rocked, as it were, from 
one extreme to the other as he alternately rose to join 
in the singing and sat down to subordinate himself to 
the agitating tactics of the Evangelist. 

At the end of the evening he experienced a sense of 
being highly wrought, and in a state of tension. He 
felt worked up — warmed up emotionally — as of one 
who had passed through an experience that developed 
a passion to some impulsive, even a rash act, he knew 
not what, whatever presented itself. If it had been 
temptation, the forward impulse would have by far 
overwhelmed his weak resistance. He could under- 
stand how men under the stimulus — the impetus — of 
alcohol have unwittingly yielded to temptation, or 
pushed headlong into one or more of the pitfalls which 

39 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

beset mankind. He felt the sense of motor tension, of 
vague goading, impelling to that aggressiveness which 
leads to overt and unseemly acts. It was analogous 
with the, Sunday School teachings of his youth, wherein 
is represented a demoniacal tempter and inciter to 
wrong-doing in a life contest with angels for the mas- 
tery of the volition, but at a time when the angels must 
have been off duty. 

As the great congregation surged through the exits 
of the Tabernacle, following its dismissal, elbowing, 
crowding, and pushing, Hamilton was surprised at the 
tumultuousness, the turbulence, and boisterousness of 
the departing throng which completely separated him 
and two of the boys from the rest of his friends. It 
was apparently giving vent to a suppressed emotion 
which had been accumulating for a couple of hours 
under high pressure. 

Among the throng leading to the transportation 
lines were many groups of young fellows and others 
of young girls. They did not appear sobered or aus- 
tere as one might expect, as affected by the lambast- 
ing, browbeating, and exhorting to which they had been 
subjected. To the contrary, they appeared less than 
ordinarily reserved and restrained. Many were ex- 
uberant, giddy, even hilarious and indecorous. Both 
sexes were so prepared, so emotionally ripe, that re- 
peated instances of "catching on" were noted without 
the usual formalities. While Hamilton's attention was 
engrossed in observations of coquetry going on about 

40 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

him, he had not noticed that his two young men com- 
panions had begun a violent flirtation with three girls 
standing on the corner opposite them. At first Ham- 
ilton was in a degree shocked. He had given so little 
attention to it that he was generally all but oblivious of 
what was clandestinely going on about him. 

"Come on boys," he said, "unless we hustle home 
we will be lost in the jam." 

"Look across there and tell me if you are in a hurry 
to get home," was the answer. 

"They are pretty 'good lookers/ " remarked Hamil- 
ton, as he gazed at the girls admiringly. 

Apparently both the girls and the boys were green 
at making unconventional acquaintanceships, but there 
appeared to be a mutual desire to overcome all em- 
barrassments and exchange pleasantries. 

After a few bantering exchanges, the boys crossed 
to the other side of the street, and boldly approaching 
the girls, doffed their hats, and offering their arms, 
volunteered to escort them home. Having once broken 
the ice, it was not long before the newness of their ac- 
quaintances was entirely lost sight of, and unrestrained 
familiarity prevailed. 

After proceeding a considerable distance together, 
the couples separated as the localities of the homes of 
the girls were approached. Finally, Hamilton found 
himself separated from all but the girl of his evening's 
choice. In fact both of them were oblivious of every- 

41 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

thing but each other. Finally when her home was 
reached, both were sorry it was not farther away. She 
had a key to the outer door, so it was not necessary to 
ring. They entered the vestibule in the dim reflected 
light from the street. Taking her hand in his, Hamilton 
told her how pleasant an evening he had enjoyed, 
thanks to meeting her, however unconventionally. As 
he relaxed his warm grip of her hand, he noted that 
she did not relax her's. He looked at her and ob- 
served her eyes riveted to his with a warm passion, of 
which there could be no question. He hesitated but a 
moment, then throwing both arms around her he 
passionately kissed her over and over. She responded 
as warmly in both embraces and kisses. 

For the first time since he left the Tabernacle, 
Hamilton felt he was giving vent to emotions that had 
been called into being by the series of agitations to 
which he had been subject. He thought how divine 
is love! Religion kindles what love fulfills, and only 
love can fulfill. Suddenly, while still clasping the ob- 
ject of his first passion in his arms, it began to dawn 
on him — the compromising situation that had so sud- 
denly developed. Who is she ? He did not even know 
her name, her life, or her people. He had not even 
had a good look at her, other than by street lights. 
He removed his arms from her, took her by both hands, 
said good night, kissed her once more, and hurried 
away. 

After Hamilton's return from the revival meeting, 

42 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

he was mentally disconcerted, nonplussed, and bewil- 
dered. All his ideas of religion and its mission were 
confused. Prior to this, his concept had been that it is 
an institution of culture, of refinement, and sublimity. 
His mental picture of a clergyman as a man of stateli- 
ness, dignity, gentility, and lofty nobility, had been 
rudely shaken by one who was in turn a clown, an acro- 
bat, a mountebank, a vulgar ruffian and a savage bar- 
barian. Could it be that a combination of the city 
churches had with full knowledge of their act, engaged 
such a man as this to lead the populace to the Lord ? 

All during the following week, Hamilton made 
strenuous efforts to return to his studious habits. It 
appeared that he redoubled his efforts in vain. His 
application seemed to be a thing of the past. There 
was a vague sense of excited imagery dominating his 
mental horizon. The vast crowd of the tabernacle 
audience and the wild ejaculations of the Evangelist 
on the platform kept appearing and reappearing in a 
series of day dreams which arrested his attention and 
monopolized his thoughts. Observing this, as he could 
not help doing, he added anxiety and worry over his 
delinquency to his other troubles. 

He regretted having broken into his school work to 
attend the revival, and resolved by all that was good 
and holy he would never go again. It is true he had 
not anticipated that he would see or hear anything of 
a disquieting nature when he yielded to his mother's 
entreaties on the eventful Friday night, or nothing 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

would have induced him to go. Mrs. Wheeler also had 
noticed that Hamilton was not the same as he had been, 
for some days, but she had not mentioned it to her son 
or even connected it in any way with the attendance 
upon the revival. It was not to be expected that a lay- 
man should think of any modern religious service as a 
cause of either physical or mental disorder or derange- 
ment. 

The morning after the revival he experienced a 
vague sense of restlessness, of diffuse excitement. The 
animation, the buoyancy, and the exaltation of the 
great stimulus of the night before had passed off, leav- 
ing a state of irritable weakness. What part of it was 
due to the reaction to the overwrought emotional state, 
and what part to the lark that was its immediate se- 
quence, it is difficult to judge. However, the end 
result was most discomforting and the physical condi- 
tion was now as exhausted and depressed as it had 
been roused, inflamed, and excited. All ambition to 
work was gone, and a feeling of lassitude and inca- 
pacity overwhelmed him. Hamilton's entire tempera- 
ment and character had changed. He was morose and 
sullen even in the presence of his mother. He was re- 
sentful and spiteful without provocation. He wanted 
to be left alone to indulge a wandering imagination, 
and in day-dreams, which carried him into the vagaries 
of religious revery and fantasy. Were he at this time 
to be guided to religious obsession, asceticism would be 
facilitated by his present condition. The most morbid 
and sordid thoughts would be developed. 

44 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Hamilton wondered what possessed him to yield to 
a temptation that had never before possessed him. To 
be sure he had not gone to the extreme of illicit love, 
but he had been carried off his feet by impulses he had 
never before experienced, and the whole of the esca- 
pade of the evening before opened to his view a side 
of social life that might otherwise have remained un- 
known to him for some time to come. It was probably 
better that the depressing consequences were as they 
were, otherwise they might have led to worse results in 
a natural progression of events. As it was, as soon as 
the depression and irritable weakness were recovered 
from, the resumption of his school work and an en- 
vironment, clean, pure, and free from all corrupting 
and contaminating influences, Hamilton soon forgot the 
erotic impulses and his folly as he again buried himself 
in his work. If now he but lives up to his resolution 
to keep away from revivals in the future, no further 
anxiety need be felt for the outcome from this, his first 
indiscretion. 



45 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter III. 

ON A bright sunny afternoon Mrs. Wheeler was at 
home alone reading. Suddenly the door-bell rang, 
and when she opened the door her cousin Martha 
Wheatcroft, stood before her in a state of most evident 
excitement. Mrs. Wheeler at once read in her face 
and restless bearing that something serious had hap- 
pened. ''What is the matter now?" she inquired, so- 
licitously, as they passed down the narrow apart- 
ment hallway. 

"I have left John," her cousin answered. 

"For what?" inquired Mrs. Wheeler. 

"Oh," said she, "I have not been satisfied with the 
way he has been supporting me for some time." 

"But what are you going to do now?" questioned 
Mrs. Wheeler. 

"I don't know, and I don't care," was the retort. "I 
could not do worse than to live with a man who fails to 
support his wife in a manner such as any woman has a 
right to expect." 

"Well, sit down and tell me all about it," returned 
Mrs. Wheeler, as she turned a chair about for her 
cousin, and sat down in another facing her. 

Mrs. Wheatcroft seated herself deliberately, took 
several sighing breaths, and began: "I have been try- 
ing for some time to get John to strike the house for 
a raise in salary, but he refused because he said he 
knew their business was seriously affected by the war 

46 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

and they could not afford to pay an increase. I in- 
sisted that the increased cost of living made it neces- 
sary for us to have more, and other firms were rais- 
ing their payroll to meet it. Still he remained obdurate, 
and said if he insisted they might let him go entirely. 
He said if they raised his salary, they would have to 
make it general, which would make it necessary to 
close up entirely. How silly !" 

"But," remarked Mrs. Wheeler, "you have three 
houses in your town, rented, which must help you out 
quite a little." 

"No," answered Mrs. Wheatcroft, "that is one of 
our troubles. Only one of them is rented, and the 
increased taxes and all expenses make the three 
houses cost us considerably more than we receive for 
the one, so this ownership at this time of general re- 
trenchment, is a source of loss rather than income, and 
we get nothing on our investment. We never do at 
such times. 

"I told John if he was a mechanic of some kind, or a 
railroad trainman, he and the other employees would 
go on a strike and force the wage increase they wanted, 
but here he is a high-class and almost indispensable 
man, and he can't get enough for a decent living." 

"But," rejoined Mrs. Wheeer, "do you think you 
can better your condition by leaving John? You have 
always said he was such a good man, so kind, and so 
thoughtful for you. I can hardly believe you are leav- 
ing him for such a cause." 

47 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"You don't understand," remonstrated Mrs. Wheat- 
croft. "I would not live with any man who did not 
support me. I have had to take from my own money 
to clothe myself and the children. I told John I could 
have no respect for a man who did not support his wife 
and family. I have stood it as long as I am going to 
and I am through." 

"But my dear child," retorted Mrs. Wheeler, "you 
have recently given what to me appear to be good 
reasons why John has not been able to do more for 
you. If he has given his all he has done all you can 
expect. I have always liked John, and I think any 
woman should be glad to have such a husband as he." 

"You do!" responded Mrs. Wheatcroft. "Perhaps 
you would like him yourself. Well, you may have him. 
I don't want him. I have had no respect for him for 
a long time, and I have told him so, and why. The 
children know it, too. They understand it perfectly, 
and they can have no more respect for him than I have. 
I shall just let him go his way, and I shall go mine." 

"What are you going to do now for someone to look 
after your property? Just think, you could not get 
anyone to do all John does, even for his board, if you 
were paying it for him, and yet John does it for noth- 
ing. Besides that he gives all he can toward a com- 
plete living, and yet you want to get rid of him." 

"Oh, Helen," ejaculated Mrs. Wheatcroft, "you can- 
not put yourself in my place. If you could,, you would 
not talk as you do. You know John is ten years older 

48 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

than I. When we were both young I did not notice it, 
but now he has lost his hair, and is otherwise show- 
ing his age. He is now past middle age, and I am in 
my prime. I am admired by other and younger men. 
I can't waste my life living with an old man. I have 
told him so. It is awful. Just think of a woman like 
me tied to a, man like that. 

"I like ever so many things that he does not care for, 
and I long for a man of my own age. I know there 
are plenty of them I could get, and who would be glad 
to have me if I were only free. When I see other 
women of my own age going out evenings with escorts, 
having a good time, I fairly hate John to think that I 
must call such as he my husband, instead of one like 
some of the other men I continually meet and admire. 
Other men are better earners than John, too." 

Mrs. Wheeler's eyes moistened as she heard the ex- 
cited and emphatic expressions of her cousin. What a 
fool, she thought to herself. But perhaps she could 
not help it, poor soul. Martha Wheatcroft had always 
been one of those tense individuals such as are not in- 
frequently found in both sexes, who are full of thought 
of self, suffering from hyperesthesia of sense of self 
or ego. 

Mrs. Wheeler endeavored in every way possible to 
allay the excitement and quiet her cousin, but to no 
avail. All she received for her pains was an accusa- 
tion that she herself must be fond of John Wheatcroft. 
"You may have him if you want him," Martha repeat- 

49 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ed with considerable show of feeling, "I am through 
with him, and with you, if you have no more cousinly 
feeling for me than that." 

When Mrs. Wheatcroft had delivered herself of 
these hasty remarks, she looked almost furiously at 
Mrs. Wheeler, but instead of anger and resentfulness 
she observed an expression of pain or grief. She hesi- 
tated a few moments, stared into space thoughtful; y, 
then said : "Pardon me, Helen, you know I am quick. I 
did not mean it. I was in a terrible state of excitement 
when I came in. You know I really am a good re- 
ligious woman and expect to go to Heaven when I die. 
I am not as bad as I seem." 

Mrs.. Wheeler arose, and approaching Mrs. Wheat- 
croft, placed her hand on her shoulder tenderly, and 
soothingly said : "My dear, I am glad to know you did 
not mean such a thing, but you must not so far forget 
yourself as to say such things that you do not mean. 
You know how very sensitive your own feelings are, 
so sensitive in fact that you are constantly imagining 
slights and offenses from others, when such a thing 
is not thought of by any but you. One would think that 
when you are yourself so sensitive you would be most 
solicitous and considerate of the feelings of others, yet 
you appear absolutely oblivious of them; you often 
cut your best friends deeply without apparent realiza- 
tion of what you are doing. 

"I fear your own disposition is at the bottom of 
your troubles with John. I have heard you nag, criti- 

50 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

cize, reprimand, depreciate, and ridicule him, time and 
again, and marveled at his tolerance of it. Few men 
would have stood it as John has. I would have thought 
him a sincere devotee to the injunction of Jesus to 
turn the other cheek, did I not know him to be an un- 
believer in Christianity. I am ashamed that you — 
my cousin — a devoted Christian and religious woman, 
are the source of the trouble, while John, the unbe- 
liever, is the real angel." 

Mrs. Wheatcroft looked daggers at her cousin. She 
well knew that all Mrs. Wheeler said was only too 
true, but she would not admit it, now any more than 
in the past. After a few moments' meditation, she 
looked up into the grave and pathetic countenance of 
her cousin, and complained: "Helen, the trouble with 
you is, you don't understand me. John does not un- 
derstand me. Both of you hold me too seriously to 
account for things I say but really don't mean, and for 
what I do without evil motive. I must have a little 
latitude. Women are altogether too closely limited in 
their rights by the selfish men. 

"You never have identified yourself with the suf- 
frage movement. If you were a true woman and loyal 
to your sister woman you would. I must bring you 
some literature pointing out the many ways that wo- 
man is deprived of her rights." 

"You need not," retorted Mrs. Wheeler. "I don't 
care to read such matter. I know the situation as 
well as you do. I would like to see my sex have all 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

true rights, but if I thought some of the fickle and 
whimsical women I know were to have any hand in 
legislation, I would feel less secure than I do today. 
What I mistrust is the restless aggressive natures of 
many such who are the loudest exponents of woman's 
suffrage." 

Mrs. Wheatcroft had long identified herself with 
the suffragist movement, which her husband never 
resented. He was one of those men who are ever alert 
to show every possible courtesy to the fair sex. He 
had patiently submitted to all manner of insult and 
affront from her because she was a woman and his 
wife. He never antagonized the movement, although 
he saw in it an outward collective expression of an 
attitude toward men which his wife emphasized so 
strongly. That same observation was what biased 
Mrs. Wheeler against it, and Mrs. Wheatcroft read 
her cousin's expression more as a resentment of her 
own attitude than of the movement otherwise. 

"I suppose," observed Mrs. Wheatcroft, "that you 
even question my religious loyalty, just as you appear 
to construe my political affiliations as so expressive of 
my personal proclivities." 

"I don't question your loyalty to your idea of re- 
ligion, I don't regard you as a hypocrite," retorted 
Mrs. Wheeler, "but like your political policy, I regard 
your religious life as an expression of your inmost 
feelings, and I regret to say I find them very selfish. 
Although I grant your sincerity, your only concern 

52 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

is to save your soul, rather than to find in your re- 
ligion a field to do good in the world." 

Mrs. Wheatcroft showed plainly in her alternate 
pallor and flushes of the face, as Mrs. Wheeler spoke, 
that she was alternately impressed and angered at the 
plain language she had heard. The complete absence 
of all bitterness and feeling, and the corresponding 
quiet poise and calm but firm demeanor of Mrs. 
Wheeler, had quite unnerved her emotional and un- 
stable cousin who had sat transfixed during this dec- 
laration. 

"I understand you," finally almost shouted Mrs. 
Wheatcroft in an outburst of emotion. "You content 
yourself with ritualistic performances. You go to 
church to see ceremonies performed, and think you 
are worshiping the Lord. In my church we experience 
religion. We actually know and feel the Lord. You 
don't know what true religion is. We do. We ex- 
perience the actual feeling of the Holy Spirit; and 
yet you have the face to question my religious status." 

Mrs. Wheeler sat thoughtfully a moment. She re- 
called her cousin's vivid imagination, her emotional 
instability, her habit of jumping to rash conclusions, 
her sentimental references to her wonderful intuition, 
so superior to her husband's plodding deliberations, 
which she had ever held in righteous contempt, though 
they had always been her balance wheel. 

Mrs. Wheeler thought : "Can this be another of her 
delusions or hallucinations?" She concluded to satis- 

53 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

iy herself if possible. "Martha," she observed, "I 
confess I have never sensed the feeling of the near 
presence of the Holy Spirit. The God of my religion 
has always seemed far away to me, although I have 
always had a vague idea He is everywhere, that He is 
an infinite Spirit — omnipresent and omnipotent. If 
you would but describe your feeling of immediate 
presence, it might help me to such a feeling. Cer- 
tainly you can give me some clue." 

Mrs. Wheatcroft appeared bewildered. She started 
to speak, then hesitated. Finally she stammered: 
"Well, you see one does not feel it all the time. One 
feels it under certain circumstances. I feel it under 
the inspiration of a good sermon, or after singing 
hymns. You see one has to be worked up to it, to be 
led into the Lord's presence, as it were. The other 
evening I attended the revival, and the latter part of 
the service I felt it the most strongly of my life. It 
was grand. I felt so exalted and happy, it was like 
heaven." 

"That is very interesting," continued Mrs. Wheeler, 
"but next I want to ask you if you ever notice similar 
feelings during joyful emotions other than of a re- 
ligious nature? For example, when they are accom- 
panied with considerable enthusiasm?" 

Mrs. Wheatcroft paused thoughtfully a few anxious 
moments, and then confessed: "Well, in one sense I 
do, but of course they,are not associated with the idea 
of the divine presence." 

54 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

At first Mrs. Wheeler thought maybe her own re- 
ligion was deficient and inferior to her cousin's, but 
now she began to realize that the underlying basis of 
her cousin's vivid sense of the divine presence was her 
emotional status and uncontrolled imagination. In 
that event, she wanted none of it. She had often heard 
her father comment on emotional religion to be 
shunned, and his surviving brother, Dr. Austin, had 
many times supplemented it. Moreover, Dr. Austin had 
often referred to his other niece, Mrs. Wheatcroft, as 
an example of the hyperesthetic and hysterical type of 
woman, which he had also warned Hamilton to avoid 
in the matrimonial market. 

Of the three Austin brothers, but one, the father of 
Mrs. Wheatcroft, was addicted to liquor. He died in 
early life, not soon enough to entirely avoid parent- 
hood, but fortunately leaving but the one child. It was 
not realized that this child had inherited any disabil- 
ties until after her marriage, when one after another 
of the typical hyperesthetic and hysterical features 
developed. Dr. Austin expressed sorrow for her, but 
almost involuntarily he avoided her, and he, like the 
rest of the family circle, was in constant dread for 
fear she would commit some deed which would bring 
disgrace on the good name of the family. 

She had early exhibited marked religious fervor 
and identified herself with the Methodists. It was 
the church neither of her husband's nor her own fam- 
ily, but it especially appealed to her nature. She was 

55 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

now carried off her feet by the present great revival. 
She enjoyed the emotional sprees it afforded her. That 
seemed harmless enough, but unfortunately she carried 
away with her an excited and restless spirit which was 
finding expression in political, social, and family discon- 
tent. She was rapidly drifting toward a divorce from 
a good and indulgent husband who had already toler- 
ated and forgiven what few men would. 

Mrs. Wheatcroft's ever besetting sin was her self- 
love and self-pity. Whenever she was exhibiting her 
impatience, unendurance, and intolerance of others, she 
was exuberant with the vice of self -exaltation and self- 
love. Alternating with this she was depressed and 
overcome with self-pity. No one was ever so per- 
secuted as she. She had now changed from the im- 
perious and defiant attitude she had exhibited when 
she came in, to one of self-pity. She wished she was 
dead since no one cared for her, not even her nearest 
of kin. 

Mrs. Wheeler had at first opposed all Mrs. Wheat- 
croft's excesses of expression, fearing lest her intem- 
perance of behavior would find issue in some rash act. 
She had, however, no more than accomplished that 
than she had the opposite emotion to contend with. She 
recalled on previous occasions how Mrs. Wheatcroft 
had abruptly gone from emotional laughter to sobs and 
tears. She had long ago learned that argument and 
reason were of little avail. She had these two al- 
ternatives, either to get her out for a change of scene or 

56 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

to something which would exalt her emotionally. She 
chose the former, and they went out for a walk on the 
river Drive. After a walk of some distance they part- 
ed, each of the cousins returning to her respective 
home. 



57 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter IV. 

HAVING finished dinner, Hamilton arose from 
the table, paced the floor, and in general demean- 
or exhibited a state of unrest and fidgetiness. 
Mrs. Wheeler was not slow in noticing this, but seeking 
to restrain her anxiety, calmly suggested that he had 
better go out into the air. Hamilton had thought of 
putting in another evening in study, but feeling restless 
and recalling that it was Friday, with no more recita- 
tions till Monday, he resolved to shelve his books and 
papers for the- present and go out for a good walk. 

Fate, however, intervened, for before Hamilton had 
passed many blocks he met an old acquaintance, Tom 
Young by name, whom he had not seen in many years. 
Tom saluted cordially ; Hamilton responded with equal 
cordiality, and passed by. Tom turning about after 
he had passed, called back to Hamilton: "Where are 
you going, old man?" 

"Just out for a walk," responded Hamilton. 

"Have you been to the revival yet ?" queried Tom. 

"I have been once," replied Hamilton. 

"What do you say to going over ? It is the biggest 
free show around here,' said Tom. 

"I don't care for it," commented Hamilton. "It un- 
strings me, and that jumping- jack of a revivalist gets 
on my nerves." 

Tom had now turned back to Hamilton's side, and 



58 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

in an impatient voice observed: "Don't be a chump. 
Gome on, they have got the excitement up now and it is 
a perfect picnic to see them all worked up." 

Hamilton did not reply, but yielded to Tom's gentle 
sway of his shoulder in the direction of the Tabernacle. 
They were early, and they had a good choice of seats. 
Tom was for a front seat, and they got what he wanted. 
A wait of over an hour was largely consumed in observ- 
ing the incoming crowds. Tom was loquacious and 
vivacious, and had something to say for every passing 
minute. 

Two seats, one on each side of the boys, had been 
left unoccupied by the serious folk, who soon hemmed 
them in until time for the service to begin. The more 
austere were evidently opposed to sitting by the side 
of two such animated boys. Finally an usher spied 
them, and in a few moments he returned with two 
girls about seventeen years old. They desired to sit 
together, and upon a request to that e'ffect by the 
usher, the boys quickly moved along. The two girls 
then passed in and occupied the two seats beside them. 

For a while there was little recognition between 
them, but before long, whenever anything was said 
that was intended as wit or humor, there appeared a 
disposition on the part of both the girls and the boys 
to look to the others for smiles of approval. Later, 
comment entailed comment until an acquaintance had 
sprung up between them, and finally they became like 
old intimates. 

59 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

At last the Choir Master appeared on the platform, 
the strains of the music filled the building, and at the 
sign of the leader the great choir began the first hymn. 
As soon as it was finished another was announced and 
sung. A scripture text was read, prayer was offered, 
and other songs by the choir followed. Attention was 
now- fixed on the platform occupants, and all mental 
diversion of the auditors was swept away. The ex- 
pectant attention of the great audience reigned su- 
preme. 

The Evangelist, answering the signal of the Choir 
Master and mounting the platform, began at once em- 
phatically, positively, and strenuously, to utter the 
dogmatic affirmations of what he represented to be 
the word of God. On and on he proceeded, empha- 
sizing his strictures with all manner of feats of agility 
and violent gesticulation. It was enough to make one 
dizzy to follow him in word and act. A sense of fa- 
tigue of the eye, the ear, and of the attention must 
have overwhelmed his auditors as they sat with a glare 
of brilliant electric lights shining in their eyes, and in 
cramped and immobile postures. The quartette also 
sat fascinated, with eyes riveted on the speaker and 
actor. They seemed in a trance, in ecstatic rigidity. 

Then came the invitation to come forward, but still 
they sat spellbound, horror stricken at vivid pictures 
of terrible consequences to those who should hesitate 
to take advantage of an offer of salvation, which the 
Evangelist opened to them. A struggle seemed to 

60 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

possess them. Antagonistic impulses impelled them, 
one to give vent to a pent up accumulation of energy 
which seemed bursting to freedom, on the one hand, 
and a vice-like inhibition on the other. If they moved 
at all, running would better vent their feelings than 
walking, but they sat transfixed. The longer they 
sat the greater the tension became, until it reached a 
painful state of stress. A sense of oppression in the 
chest became progressively more distressing until the 
breathlessness became a serious feature. 

Finally their attention was directed to a movement 
all about them, persons passing down the aisles to the 
front. The sense of stress impelling to movement 
now began to crystalize itself in a disposition to join 
in the same movement, and at last a suggestion to 
them by a worker started one of the girls nearest the 
aisle. She was followed by the other girl and the two 
boys. They followed the throng, but half conscious, 
like drunken persons, with small recognition of their 
surroundings or of the distance covered. It was like 
a dream or somnambulism. 

Finally landed into a front row of seats, they were 
aroused from their reveries and sobered up, as it were, 
by workers who passed among them questioning them 
regarding their desires, card registering, etc. The ser- 
vice was now nearly over. They could return to their 
seats only with difficulty, owing to the many who were 
going forward like a contagion or epidemic, so they 
determined to start home ahead of the crowd. 



61 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeltr 

Instinctively, without premeditation or prearrange- 
ment of any kind, the four passed out together. When 
they had reached the street, Tom, who was always the 
more aggressive, asked the girls where they lived. 
"Near Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn," at first staggered 
them somewhat, but without betraying it they pro- 
ceeded together to the subway station, got on an ex- 
press, and were soon rapidly on the way to their des- 
tination. 

On arriving at the Atlantic Avenue station, a few 
blocks walk took them to a door which was indicated 
as the home of one of the girls, and where they both 
were to spend the night. One of the girls asked the 
time, and as it appeared it was but eleven o'clock, both 
girls insisted that the boys must come in for a little 
while. 

From the time of leaving the tabernacle all four of 
the young people exhibited unusual excitement which 
was manifested in animation, vivacity, loquacity, and 
general heartiness. There was also an unconscious 
mutual show of affection of more than ordinary ar- 
dor. It appeared that the emotionalism, with which 
they were so recently convulsed, still lingered in the 
absence of the theological associations of but an hour 
ago, which had dominated their attentions and thrilled 
them through and through. It lingered in the form of 
love — of passion. 

In the living room with a lone dim light, the two 
couples sat chatting in suppressed voices, in whispers 

62 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

and undertones. Time flitted away with no signs of 
parting. First came embraces, then passionate kisses. 
Time added to the fuel, the spark broke into a flame. 
It proved to be the old, old story of not wisely, but too 
well. Then came an awful consciousness that some- 
thing dreadful had happened. The boys felt pressed 
to hurry home to escape the consequences of imprudent 
acts. They hurried back to Manhattan; Tom got off 
downtown, and Hamilton continued on to his uptown 
home, worried, anxious, sick at heart, and frightened at 
his own indiscretion. 

Arriving home, Hamilton slipped quietly into his 
room and retired without arousing his mother. Every- 
thing was favorable for a good night's rest, but for 
his mental restlessness. That prevented him from 
sleeping. As he lay agitated and worried, all the events 
of the evening passed through his mind. He thought, 
how could he have so far forgotten himself as to be 
guilty. What a remarkable situation. All so pas- 
sionate and so weak-willed as to so easily submit to 
it. It was his first experience, though evidently not 
Tom's. Tom led the way, but the rest followed like 
sheep. The girls, apparently of good family, with con- 
siderable degree of refinement and culture, had prob- 
ably, like Hamilton, never forgotten themselves be- 
fore. The outcome, no one could tell. 

Should he shoulder the possible responsibility like 
a man, or cowardly escape it if he could? The girls did 
not know him, and might be inclined to suppress their 



63 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

own ignominy. What if it would lead to suicide or com- 
plete moral degradation ? He shuddered as numerous 
possibilities flashed through his head. Neither his 
mother nor he could support a wife, and such disgrace 
would probably kill her and create such disgust in 
his uncle Austin that he would cut him off hence- 
forward, and his educational prospects and entire fu- 
ture would be ruined. 

While he thus lay musing on all manner of ugly 
possibilities, his mother came into his room to call him 
to get up for breakfast. He was startled at her in- 
trusion on his thoughts, and while the five hours spent 
in bed seemed like twenty, he had not slept, and he 
arose exhausted and worn. When he appeared at 
breakfast, his mother gasped as she gazed at his heavy 
eyes and sodden, morose features. She questioned him 
closely where he had been the night before. She 
anxiously interrogated him what bad company he had 
fallen in with, had he been drinking, and everything 
else she could think of. 

At first, fearful of being found otit, Hamilton 
evaded, dodged, and endeavored to side-track his moth- 
er, but she became suspicious and pressed yet more 
persistently for a straightforward answer, which she 
knew would be reliable whenever she could extract it. 
Her persistence, however, only irritated him. He be- 
came peevish and angry. He repulsed his mother sav- 
agely, as he had never done before. The tears came to 
her eyes. She felt his unfeeling cuts keenly, but only 

64 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

changed her pressure to entreaties. At last he blurted 
out that he had been to the revival. Only then did 
Mrs. Wheeler desist. 

Now realizing that a great and morbid change had 
come upon her boy, and observing, moreover, that 
perhaps she herself was the cause of his leaving his 
breakfast almost untouched, Mrs. Wheeler put her 
arm around him, kissed him, and remarking that he 
was ill, insisted that he should return to his bed and 
remain there over Sunday, if necessary, to insure full 
recuperation before resuming his school work. 

Hamilton rolled and tossed in his bed, restless and 
agitated, stewing and worrying over the unfortunate 
position that fate had cast for him. He could do 
nothing but await developments in suspense. If the 
worst came to the worst, he could but make the best 
of it in crossing the bridge when he reached it. 

His mother darkened the room, hoping he could 
sleep. Sleep he needed badly enough, but sleep he 
could not. After a half day of boredom, Hamilton 
determined that he would feel better up and about than 
in bed. Quietly he arose, dressed, and sought the 
morning paper in the living room. Shdrtly Mrs. 
Wheeler appeared. Having gotten lunch ready she 
had started toward Hamilton's room to determine if 
he was awake, and would have his lunch in bed. At 
first she did not notice Hamilton sitting by the window, 
but the sound of the rustle of his paper attracted her 
attention. She turned, and announced lunch. 

65 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Hamilton had now regained his composure. His 
morning rest in bed had recuperated him despite the 
fact that he did not sleep. Mrs. Wheeler was careful 
not to irritate or cross him. Her experience with that, 
so recent and vivid, would not permit her to repeat it. 
She now hoped it was a closed event and a few days 
would see it a forgotten one. From that day onward, 
neither Mrs. Wheeler nor Hamilton mentioned it. 
Mrs. Wheeler recalled that Hamilton was unstrung, 
as it were, by the last revival meeting he attended, and 
she resolved that if she could help it he should not at- 
tend another. 

After a few days Hamilton had in a measure recov- 
ered his former spirit, largely through the benefits de- 
rived from daily walks up and down the beautiful 
Riverside Drive in company with his mother. Mrs. 
Wheeler noted one great change in his demeanor, how- 
ever, namely that he exhibited an interest in the girls, 
which she had never noticed before. One day she 
caught him closely eying a pretty girl as though hoping 
to catch her eye in flirtation. Suddenly he seemed to 
be conscious that his mother was observing him, and 
he turned his gaze to a conveniently passing river boat. 
She, however, was not oblivious to his changed moral 
demeanor. 

Hamilton had been generous to a fault. Now he ex- 
hibited a considerable degree of selfishness. His whole 
thought had been entirely for others. Now he had 
himself always in mind. He thought not only of his 

66 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

mortal existence, but of its eternal perpetuation. Self- 
love and self-pity possessed his whole mind. Whereas 
he had been always patient and tolerant, he had now be- 
come impatient, petulant, and intolerant. Where he 
was brave and manly, he was now disposed to cow- 
ardice and timidity. Whereas he had been absolutely 
reliable and honest, he now was disposed to escape 
straightforwardness. 

He had been always ready to do an act of kindness 
or generosity, now his whole thought was to escape 
it. He had always been so reasonable, so thoughtful 
and considerate. Now he was impulsive, acted rashly, 
and foolishly. He acted first, and thought and regretted 
afterward. Whereas he had been strong and resolute, 
now he had become weak, fickle, vacillating, and irres- 
olute. His old-time sincerity, loyalty, and staunchness, 
were succeeded by insincerity, disloyalty, unfaithful- 
ness, treachery, and hypocrisy. He had become whim- 
sical, capricious, fitful, fanciful, freakish, eccentric, er- 
ratic, frivolous, and wayward. He became as tyranni- 
cal as he was unenduring and intolerant. Such was the 
conversion of character which was now the task of 
medical science to eradicate. 



67 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter V. 

MRS. WHEELER had for some time observed 
the progressive deterioration in Hamilton's 
character, and his mental and physical condi- 
tion with alarm, but breathed it to no one. The last de- 
velopments, however, caused her to hurry to her vener- 
able uncle, the eminent alienist and neurologist, Dr. 
Austin. After a short wait, hardly permitting her to 
regain her composure, she was admitted into the private 
office. 

Mrs. Wheeler lost no time in laying bare her son's 
case to her uncle, detailing at length all the changes and 
manifestations which had characterized the history, as 
she then knew it, from the fated first night at the re- 
vival; and Dr. Austin was not dilatory in asking 
questions to bring out the salient points of the clinical 
history that Mrs. Wheeler had not thought to mention. 

Finally she came to a stopping place in her story, 
and Dr. Austin paused as though in deep thought. As 
he sat in silence, one could observe a curling of his 
lip, a frown, a clench of his fist. His face colored, and 
his whole figure showed he was angry. Finally he 
broke the suspense with the oath: 'These d — d evan- 
gelists ought to be strung up." 

"Let us understand first of all that an evangelist is a 
man, and that the function of the successful evangelist, 
as I see it, is the artful production of an abnormal state 
of the mind, followed by taking methodical advantage 

68. 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

of his victim, while in that condition, to stampede him 
into becoming an evangelical church supporter. More- 
over, the manifest design and object of this social and 
physical crime, is the conversion of a man or woman 
into a living working automaton, a super-impression- 
able, suggestible, and credulous individual who will 
ever afterward be susceptible and subject to control by 
others, and in especial connection with the religious 
dogmas which are impressed during the most sug- 
gestible period directly following the conversion. 

"The fundamental emotions aroused in his audit- 
ors by the successful evangelist are directly and essen- 
tially depressive. Among them are fear, pathos, an- 
guish, despair, dread, and panic, while a reaction ex- 
altation is the only escape afforded. The victim re- 
mains paralyzed in the depths of the depression until 
he grasps the straw dangled in his face, and emerges 
from his gloom to an opposite emotion of exaltation. 
This transition thus affords a way out from the ten- 
sional oppressive to relaxed states. The victim is re- 
leased, as it were, from a state of tetany or cramp, to 
one of motor freedom, when he 'hits the trail' (pass- 
ing down to the front of the house) to activity. The 
expansive follows the contracted (depressed) ideas, 
and maniacal exaltation and delusions of grandeur are 
the first symptoms of unbalancing of the mind, when 
that degree of abnormality obtains. 

"We hesitate to believe any wrong could be done in 
behalf of religion, but few are so ignorant or so ob- 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

tuse as to be unable to comprehend that the funda- 
mental object of revivals is the rehabilitation of the 
church membership, and at bottom the recruiting of its 
finances. The larger the congregation, the larger is 
the minister's salary, and in general the larger is the 
clientele of the older membership among the merchants 
and professional men. The political power of the 
church and its members and the prestige of the clergy 
is also correspondingly increased. That is why revivals 
are conducted by the evangelical churches regardless 
of their other consequences, and why the public toler- 
ance of them is so great. Bear in mind also that most of 
the victims of broken wills of revival causation, con- 
tinue slaves to the crowd psychology of their connected 
church congregations. If the anti-Catholic writers and 
speakers were not so ignorant of crowd psychology they 
would not be so amazed at the priest-incited mob viola- 
tions of their public speakers, which end in murder and 
destruction of property. Not until our country renews 
its pledge to a religious liberty, which shall not be in- 
terpreted as religious license, but conversely as freedom 
from the curse of license, will we again enjoy true 
national independence." 

Dr. Austin paused thoughtfully, then continued: 
"What concerns us now is the blight which has been 
visited upon Hamilton. We must let the public fight 
its own battle, and bend our efforts to whatever is 
possible for Hamilton. 

"Now, my dear niece, I appreciate only too well how 



70 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

much you need encouragement and optimism rather 
than pessimism, but we cannot afford to ignore the situ- 
ation which demands our best attention and efforts, 
for the sake of sparing ourselves solicitous anxiety. 
That is already another grievous fault of pur times. 
If you will bury yourself now in the whole-souled task 
of rebuilding this boy who has been so cruelly rent and 
mangled, you will recruit your own nerve and poise 
quicker than by the opposite course of ignoring it in a 
selfish ambition to save yourself. 

"I first want you to realize that Hamilton has been 
rendered what we call a hyperesthetic. The super-sensi- 
tiveness to every noise and source of irritation, the 
super-irritability and super-excitability, which are 
among his symptoms, must be allayed and subdued, not 
by more force or shock, but by avoiding them. We must 
not break down his will any farther. Don't antagonize 
him any more than you can help. Try to govern him 
by kindly influence rather than unyielding discipline. 
Avoid exciting and irritating him. When he is es- 
pecially unreasonable and quarrelsome, endeavor to rea- 
son with him without irritation on your part, and thus 
soothe him. Remember his disposition to impulsiveness 
is closely related to the other symptoms I have just 
described to you. Rash acts are its fruits. He can 
resume sustained and enduring reasoning and reason- 
able thoughts and acts only after he recovers from the 
distressing sensorial shocks and knockout blows he has 
experienced. 

"The super-susceptibility and suggestibility, the re- 

■71 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

suits of the evangelist's browbeating and shock produc- 
ing tactics, the instilling of fear and even terror, the 
paralyzing effect on the will, etc., are pathological con- 
comitants of the other described manifestations. These, 
however, you will find useful in the control of Hamil- 
ton when he is disposed to outbursts of passion. I 
would caution you, however, that great care must be 
taken in handling him with these now dangerous 
weapons. Bear in mind always, that the results al- 
ready obtained in breaking down the will, have corre- 
spondingly weakened his resistance to the importunities 
of those with whom he will come in contact the rest of 
his life. He will be super-susceptible to the proposi- 
tions of all manner of confidence men, goldbrick 
swindlers, and the like. He will be what they call an 
easy mark, while his general credulity will make him 
a marked man by all the varieties of isms and cults. 
Worse than all, he will now be even more susceptible 
to later revivalism. For that reason he must be shield- 
ed from attendance on future revivals and from the 
emotional sort of church services. Unfortunately he 
has already, while in the conversion ecstacy, signed 
a card giving his name and address, which will probably 
be followed up by some of the agents engaged in 
whipping the converted into church membership rolls. 
If so, you must turn them away without their seeing 
him. 

"An essential result of religious emotional excite- 
ment is disturbance of equilibrium, of mental balance, 
of a state of poise, with a tendency to instability which 

72 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

involves a disposition to deviate to both extremes, to 
exaltation on the one hand and to depression on the 
other, which characterizes a type of insanity as its 
end result. This state of lunacy is appropriately 
named as representing the lateral extremes of these 
states which alternately hold sway, namely: manic- 
depressive insanity, and is the commonest type of in- 
sanity proceeding from this cause. The most typical 
features are instability as the predisposing condition, 
and the disappearance of the intermediate mental status 
of equilibrium. It is a state of fluctuation from one 
extreme type to another, and therefore of frequent 
periods of more or less mental unbalance. 

"Perhaps the best illustration of the normal and ab- 
normal processes involved in sensorial impressions is 
to be found in the simple laws of reaction of living sub- 
stance in general. If we take a living frog's leg and 
impart to it any form of physical stimulus, such as 
chemical, electrical, thermal, photic, or mechanical, 
equal in volume and intensity to the physiological im- 
pulses, we obtain a contractile reaction. However, if 
we give it a succession of such stimuli, each succeed- 
ing one following the preceding so closely that ex- 
tension has not had time to follow each contraction, 
the muscle remains contracted, and as the stimulus 
continues to be adduced the contraction tightens, and 
eventually the muscle dies strangled in the stage of 
contraction. Again, if instead of a frequent succession 
of stimulations we give a similar succession of hard 
blows, a single contraction is produced which is not fol- 

73 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

lowed by relaxation, but which is succeeded by a tetanic 
rigidity which merges into> rigor mortis. 

"A bombardment of violently abnormal sense im- 
pressions, such as modern evangelism affords, does 
not permit of each stimulus experiencing an individual 
normal reaction, which in this case would be over a 
wide distribution of interaction with associated tissue 
areas carrying impressions of past experiences. We 
observe, that as a sequence of such bombardments, the 
full concert of representations of these past exper- 
iences, so necessary to normal deliberation, is seriously 
lacking concomitant to more or less muscular trans- 
fixation which is indicative of tetany of the super- 
ficial contractile tissues of the body, and of the coinci- 
dent inhibition of full conscious reasoning. 

"The nervous tissues which are not contractile to any 
appreciable extent, however unable to exhibit active 
contractile phenomena, as I have described in the other 
cases, yet do exhibit deterioration from the same cause 
by loss of tissue density, which involves an abnormal 
facility of transmission of subsequent sense impulses, 
and therefore augments the predisposition to their pre- 
cocious and excessive reactions, which are due to the 
operation of the law of repetition as applied to physi- 
ology. Other applications which I will give later, will 
further illustrate the operations of this law. Let us 
now pass on to a consideration of the Evangelist's 
series of psychological processes. 

"The more intense the excessive impetus of stimuli 

74 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

producing an impression, the more confused and de- 
fective will be the picture of the outside world which is 
produced by it. Long periods of sustained attention, 
maintained by antics of movement and a continuous 
jargon of chaotic jumbles of affirmations of vague 
and mystical things, not only produce fatigue of the 
attention, but desultory confusion, leading to discon- 
tinuity and incoordination of thought. Fatigue and 
shock alone are productive of a blunting of special 
sense perception, and thus for any unit intensity of 
stimuli the mental picture will be correspondingly con- 
fused and defective. 

"Paradoxically, the exhibited facility of mental per- 
ception and emotional expression are in inverse ratio, 
one to another. The super-emotional facility of re- 
action in fact appears to replace and thus inhibit the 
more perfect and complete forms of perception. Thus 
intense emotions of sorrow and fear are active pro- 
ducers of falsification of ideas. 

"Not infrequently intense emotions are wrought by 
sense impressions, which are equally confused and de- 
fective. Police authorities know only too well how 
poor an account of an event is usually given by per- 
sons experiencing great simultaneous emotion. It is 
both confused and defective. The same is the case 
with emotional religious conversions, the converts are 
bereft of any intellectual concepts. They are simply 
victims of emotional collapse and surrender. Even the 
surrender has no religious significance, and all depends 

75 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

upon later taking advantage of the credulity of the 
general super-impressionability and super-suggestibility 
thus produced, which also exposes the victim to other 
and possibly more unscrupulous operators quite as 
much as to the religious ones. The involved loss of 
capacity for continuity of thought also finds expression 
in a morbid distractibility, owing to which goal attain- 
ments are made both mentally and physically impossible, 
or incomplete. 

"The so-called pure mental perceptions are such 
sense impressions as have come to the sensorium, 
(with or without commanding full conscious attention 
to their attainment of sensory reaction), and have not 
been productive of any kind of motor reaction. Many 
conscious perceptions do not create motor reaction. 
Man, less than any other animal, reacts to general en- 
vironmental perturbations, and domesticated animals 
much less than wild ones. Man cultivates and extends 
the capacity for pure perception, or as we call it in- 
tellectual receptivity, as independent of motor reac- 
tions. A certain amount of it is compatible with nor- 
mality, but we are just beginning to learn that in com- 
pensation for independent perceptive activity, we must 
have alternative motor activity or physical exercise. 
We must, in fact, compensate in physical exercise for 
our mental operations. 

"Whenever the perceptive faculties are worked much 
out of proportion to the exercise of the motor organs, 
we attain an unstable or emotional state. As an ex- 

76 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ample of this, witness the high degree of perceptive ex- 
cesses of the sedentary student, of which Hamilton 
is an example, and the dramatic presentation of scenes 
and events that are most highly productive of motor re- 
actions, which we witness in opera chairs, in motor 
passivity, experiencing only those suppressed reactions 
of the motor organs (the muscular system) which we 
call thrills, and are productive of states of motor ten- 
sion which are often wrought to the breaking point. 

"After the breaking up of the normal stability or 
stamina of body equilibrium, in the evangelistic pro- 
duction of the condition that is commonly called in- 
stability, we have a weakened state in which the victim 
is emotionally predisposed, and prone on slight or no 
perceptible provocation to inordinate levity, hysterical 
laughter, light-headed frivolity, and to abrupt changes 
to tears and sobbing from the same causes. Such are 
the physical manifestations which pass current under 
the common name of hysteria. 

"Since hysteria has been generally regarded as a 
functional, rather than organic disease, and it occurs 
so frequently, especially in the weaker women, and 
so much as by-symptoms of other and more serious dis- 
eases, of which it is a concomitant exacerbation mani- 
festation, it has been neglected by the medical profes- 
sion and largely relegated to 'Christian Scientists/ 
other similar cults, and to Sanitariums. The latter 
including asylums for the insane. 

"Moreover, in private practice, this is one of the 

77 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

most unsatisfactory diseases to treat, for the reason 
that such patients are unreliable as to their case his- 
tories, as to their following of physician's directions, 
the following up any prescribed course of treatment, 
and in excluding from their experiences disturbing and 
exciting factors of exacerbation. 

"Hysterical individuals are notorious as liars, thieves, 
moral renegades, etc., in all respects regarding common 
honesty and social intercourse. They are tyrants, ob- 
livious of the rights and feelings of others, and are dis- 
tinctly prone to alcoholic and drug addictions. They 
are so disposed to intrigues, subterfuges, and malicious 
trickery, that no one about them is safe. With these 
they combine the most fanatical religious dispositions, 
and are therefore the arch hypocrites in the eyes of all 
those with whom they come in contact. 

"They lie when it is as easy to tell the truth. They 
fabricate great yarns out of pure imagination. They 
shoplift and steal from their best friends when they 
already have more than they can use in a lifetime. 
With ideal wedded mates they indulge in outside secret 
and illicit love. They are entirely untrustworthy in 
marital, social, or financial relations. Physicians, 
nurses, and servants are constantly subject to all man- 
ner of unjust and unwarranted accusations. Those 
nearest and dearest to them are not exempt. It is 
quite impossible for them to play a social game of 
cards without cheating. Sudden changes from exces- 
sive love to rabid hatred, is as easy as from laughter 

78 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

to tears. Even the most woman-worshipped and pam- 
pered clergymen suddenly find themselves accused of 
the vilest of crimes by this class of their parishioners. 

"America, the land of the free and the principal vic- 
tim of the revival crime, especially dating from the 
'Great Awakening' of 1800 in Kentucky, and the 
'burnt district' of 1832 in New England, so notorious 
for their developments' of criminal and immoral mani- 
festations, has become the recognized land of hysteria 
and neurasthenia, 'the great ■■American disease' of 
medical writers. This subject of observation and re- 
mark by many noted authors did not escape the con- 
servative Sir James Bryce, in his work 'The American 
Commonwealth.' He observed : 'All denominations in 
the United States are more prone to emotionalism in 
religion and have less reserve in displaying it than in 
England and Scotland.' 

"Is it not time that we were inquiring into the causes 
of such a state of affairs ? It is not because of a pre- 
ponderance of Latin or Celtic blood, for in this re- 
spect we exceed the Irish, the Spanish, and the Italians. 
The Sicilians, Greeks, Syrians, and other Eastern and 
Southern Mediterranean countrymen who come to our 
shores, are all more stable than we, or we would not 
tolerate them. Even the Jews do not work themselves 
up into these destroying religious hysterias in our age. 
In fact, nothing compares with it since the crusades, 
and the dancing and flagellation epidemics of the Middle 
Ages. Our country is indeed revisited by a revival 

79 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

epidemic, a plague, which is converting the whole 
iNation into a new burnt district. 

"When this revival pest broke out anew a decade 
ago, we were just recovering from a long period of po- 
litical campaigns that were nothing less than great hys- 
terica, and fanatical outbursts, and of a series of equal- 
ly barbaric manifestations connected with all industrial 
and financial readjustments, in which anarchy and 
panic reigned. 

"We have passed through a period of political and 
financial corruption, which has been exceled by none 
in history. Our narcotic drug and alcoholic consump- 
tion has been no less than staggering. Our vices^ be- 
came so prodigious that the supply of human material 
exhausted the resources of the rest of the civilized and 
half civilized world. 

"We had just been gradually coming to our senses 
in the exposing, curbing, and subduing of corruption, 
vice, and crime, and were becoming sane politically, 
financially, and industrially, when like a great confla- 
gration the churches determined upon a course to re- 
habilitate their congregations, that had been dwindling 
parallel with the oncoming general sanity of the peo- 
ple, and desperately turned to professional revivalists 
who were willing to again hysterize our people to 
subserve their purposes. 

"Our misfortune, in Hamilton's case, is but one of 
hundreds of thousands that this epidemic will cause be- 
fore it comes to an end, and little of which w ill ever see 
the light of publicity. 

80 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"As a basis of what you need to understand of this 
subject, let us first comprehend that emotion is a 
physical manifestation. Over stimulus and exercise of 
the mental impulses at the expense of or without co- 
incident exercise of the physical or motor reactions, are 
productive of a corresponding state of disequilibrium 
between what we call the mental and physical factors 
of our life histories. 

"The production of such a state of disequilibrium 
between the mental and the physical reactions is re- 
sponsible for a corresponding production of an ex- 
plosive type of motor instability, which in turn is a 
state verging upon a breaking integrity of physical en- 
durance. The ultimate explosion represents the re- 
lease of the tension : the hysterical outburst. 

"The segregated mechanical process of conversion is 
one of sudden release from high pressure. If the re- 
lease is gradual, the typical features are absent, and the 
end is defeated. The explosive-like phenomenon of 
conversion is attained by exceeding an individual's ca- 
pacity to withstand the stress to which he is subjected. 
The time factor and the ease or difficulty of attain- 
ment, depends upon the emotionalism and stamina, or 
stability of the subject. The greater the instability, 
the earlier is the capacity limit reached and the ex- 
plosive event attained. Those who are immune are 
those who exhibit the capacity to maintain their integ- 
rity against the imposed stress. 

"The closest mechanical analogy to conversion is 

81 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

probably the process of 'puffing' whole cereals. They 
are heated to high thermic expansive pressure in a con- 
fined space, and the pressure is abruptly released while 
at the maximum point of the heat expansive pressure. 
The puffing is attained by the explosive violence occur- 
ring on the sudden release of the thermic stress. If 
the heat and stress are permitted to decline prior to re- 
lease, the puffing will lessen in direct ratio to the fall 
of temperature until cooling is complete. The same is 
the case in event of gradual decline of stress with 
revival congregations. The cereal will, however, after 
heating, never fully return to its former density, and 
will more readily respond to subsequent heat expan- 
sions, and will thus explosively expand on sudden re- 
lease at progressively lower temperatures at each sub- 
sequent heating by virtue of the thus caused progressive 
reduction in the integrity of its integration. This 
physical law is also operative in those frequenters of 
revivals who succumb sooner or later. 

The loss of density involves in both the vegetable 
(cereal) and the animal living tissue, a corresponding 
loss of integrity of integration, both alike exhibiting a 
lowered resistance to physical stress which corresponds 
to the loss of density of their substance. The more is 
any substance, (living or non-living, animal or veget- 
able), expanded by any means, the greater is its pro- 
clivity to attain to explosive disintegration from any 
single cause, and in an individual the greater is his sub- 
sequent irritable weakness, plasticity, credulity, and 
susceptibility to future convulsive conversions. 
82 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"We may perhaps best understand this if we begin 
with the simplest form of reaction of the living sub- 
stance which composes our functioning bodies. The 
simplest form of response or reaction to any pertur- 
bation from without, is attended directly by simple con- 
traction. In complex and higher animals the pertur- 
bation is conducted through the medium of one or 
more of the organs of the five senses. Thus all per- 
turbations from without the body come as sensory im- 
pulses, the most direct and simple form of reaction of 
which is by the shortest nerve route, and is termed 
reflex action. The most primitive and natural reaction 
is the most direct and immediate as exhibited by motor 
function, manifested in alternate contraction and relax- 
ation. There are, however, sometimes many inequali- 
ties between these actions." 

Here Mrs. Wheeler observed : "This experience of 
Hamilton's has served to focus in my mind a number 
of questions which have long been enigmas to me. In 
fact, the data of many of them has been so fragmen- 
tary that the facts were lost to any assembled consider- 
ation. What you have already told me has led to some 
degree of coordination of much chaotic and vague in- 
formation. 

"As long as I can remember, I have heard of hys- 
teria vaguely mentioned as an expression of fright, 
and perhaps as some obscure kind of a disease, but I 
never thought of a vivid picturization of the terror 
of death or revivalism as a cause, nor have I connected 

83 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

emotion definitely with hysteria. Emotions of passion, 
anger, and hate, of love, grief, and religion, I always 
thought of separately. Perhaps most of us have pic- 
tured the emotional actress as a type giving greater ex- 
pressiveness of love, hate, grief, etc. Hovever, your 
little talks on these subjects, since Hamilton's sad ex- 
perience with them, have proved most illuminating to 
me, and gradually I am becoming conversant with facts 
which I am sure are most important and vital to every- 
one to know, yet I fear it is ruthlessly removing the 
veil of the cherished mysteries of life, and I shall lose 
my religion thereby." 

"You should not feel that way about it, my dear," 
responded Dr. Austin. "That is the very idea regard- 
ing these things that is responsible for much harm. 
As you say, the available information on the subject is 
indeed badly scattered, and most fragmentary at that, 
but even if it were ideally collated, and coordinated, 
you probably would never condescend to read it, for the 
very reason you have expressed, the fear that it might 
appeal too greatly to your reason. You, like many 
others, regard it as a sort of sacrilege to permit your- 
self to know something which might unsettle your be- 
lief in something else, or prove it false. That is a sad 
frame of mind for any one to get into. You must see 
it is abnormal. 

"The Encyclopaedia Biblica, the most reliable and 
scholarly biblical dictionary in existence, the product 
of the best scholars of the Church of England, and 

84 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

the authority of our own Episcopal Church, would 
open your eyes. Another work, 'The Bible for Learn- 
ers,' would also give you some of the results of the 
Higher Criticism, without taking away your religion 
perhaps, but they would prepare your mind to receive 
and understand the great truths I am trying to help you 
to consider on their own merits." 

"Enough of that, Uncle," interjected Mrs. Wheeler, 
"don't think for one minute that I doubt what you 
tell me, or that I don't want to hear it, for I do. I 
want all the information it will please you to give me, 
regardless of past beliefs." 

"I don't think you doubt what I tell you," responded 
Dr. Austin, "but no one knows better than I the hold 
religion exerts over one who has been brought up by 
such a good, but unsophisticated old soul as your moth- 
er. She never discriminated, because she never knew 
anything else. Few did in her time. Had we lived in 
her generation, we too would have believed as she did, 
but you must not be governed by that. In my early 
days we were without many of the electrical and me- 
chanical devices which are now in everyday use, yet 
we are now glad to have them. Your father died in 
the faith nearly thirty years ago, and if I had died 
then it would have been the same with me. It is be- 
cause I survived that I progressed." 

Mrs. Wheeler arose, and approaching her Uncle, said 
affectionately: "Uncle dear, if you knew how much I 
love, honor, and respect you, you would not find all that 

85 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

vindication necessary, but I see your point. I must 
go now, but don't permit yourself to think I am hurried 
by anything you have said. I have already imposed on 
your time as well as overstayed the hour I should 
have returned to assume my duties at home. 

"Good-bye," she said, as she leaned forward and 
planted a kiss on her uncle's forehead. Then hurrying 
to the door, she passed on her way home. 



86 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter VI. 

HAMILTON had retired late after a long siege 
of getting an unusually arduous assignment of 
lessons. Since his last revival experience, he 
found his mental powers much impaired. He was as 
receptive as ever, even more so, but he was slower and 
auller of comprehension. He was more transient, his 
learning did not become a part of himself as it did 
before. He could obtain good marks if he could recite 
within an hour or so after going over it. To memorize, 
however, for the next day's recitations caused him to 
go over and over it, then again review it the next morn- 
ing. 

It was most noticeable that a class of work entailing 
reasoning out problems, demanding prolonged attention 
and consecutive thinking, was much more laborious. 
He didn't have the ability to grapple with difficult 
problems nor the endurance of sustained effort. He 
found constant renewals of effort necessary to main- 
tain any degree of continuance of study. There were 
incessant diversions from the themes and subjects of 
his labors. Every little thing annoyed and diverted 
him. His thoughts were broken and fugitive in nature. 
Discontinuity was so pronounced that it required an 
hour or more to do what he formerly accomplished in 
a half hour. 

After retiring at the end of his evening's labors, he 
was so agitated he could not sleep. He was lying in 

87 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

bed with the room dark, other than a dim light shining 
in the open window, when he was startled at the 
sound of someone moving about sneakingly in the ad- 
joining room. Hamilton knew it could not be his moth- 
er for she had been asleep for several hours, and even 
should she get up to go into the room adjoining his 
own, she would be sure to turn on the light. 

Suddenly he saw a flash of light which he knew must 
be that of a dark lantern. Cautiously slipping out of 
bed, he stepped behind the open door of his room and 
peeped through the wide opening between the door and 
the casing. A dark figure was creeping about, flash- 
ing a lantern from time to time in an effort to get the 
bearings of the apartment. 

Finally the visitor, throwing the light into the open 
doorway of Hamilton's room, advanced towards it. 
As soon as he reached the threshold he appeared to 
observe the bed clothing thrown back as though by 
a recent occupant. Hesitating a moment, he drew a 
gun from his pocket, then advanced into the room, 
looking to the right and left and under the bed. Ham- 
ilton knew it would be but a moment when he should 
be discovered behind the door, and as the intruder 
stooped to look beneath the bed, he slipped around the 
door into the other room, pulled the door closed after 
him and turned the key. He then hurried into his 
mother's room, obtained his father's loaded revolver 
from a bureau drawer, and returning to the intermed- 
iate room, turned on the electric light, and turned the 

88 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

key, unlocking the door opening into his room. As soon 
as he heard a hand on the knob, he aimed his pistol 
at a point where one coming out would first appear, 
and the moment the door opened he called as sternly 
as he could, "Throw up your hands." The burglar's as- 
tonishment was so complete as he looked into the 
barrel of the revolver that up went both hands, the dark 
lantern in one hand and the other from the knob. 

With the glare of four Mazda lamps from the center 
fixture shining full in the face of the intruder, Hamil- 
ton at once recognized him as Tom Young, a former 
schoolboy friend, and the same who accompanied him 
in his second revival experience. 

For a brief moment Hamilton was in a quan- 
dary what to do. An ugly looking gun protruding 
from Tom's right coat pocket did not look very in- 
viting. He must get that gun away from Tom while he 
had the "drop" on him. As he hesitated for means 
to accomplish that object, Mrs. Wheeler, awakened 
by the sound of Hamilton's emphatic command to 
"throw up hands," crept out in a dressing gown to see 
what the disturbance was. As soon as she obtained a 
view of the intruder, she also saw it was Tom. Before 
she could ask a question Hamilton requested her to 
take the gun from Tom's pocket while he held his 
"bead" on him. Mrs. Wheeler circled around timidly 
to the right side of Tom, and then reaching at arm's 
length took hold of the handle of the gun between her 
thumb and forefinger and lifted it from his pocket, 
until she could clasp it with the other hand. 

89 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Tom stood pale as a ghost all during this procedure, 
not a word was spoken by either him or Hamilton. 
Twice he would have lowered his arms, but each time 
Hamilton corrected his aim at his chest and Tom's 
hands immediately went higher again. As soon as his 
mother had the weapon in hand, Hamilton's gun came 
down to his side, and seating himself he requested Tom 
to do the same, which the latter did with some alacrity. 

Hamilton sank into his chair as one exhausted, he 
looked dazed. He was as white as a sheet. He looked 
at Tom at first as though he wanted to speak and 
couldn't. Finally Tom broke the painful silence by 
stuttering something to the effect that he had gotten 
into the wrong apartment. Hamilton looked at him 
as though perplexed, but Mrs. Wheeler inquired incred- 
ulously: "What! with a revolver and dark lantern? 
That will not do, Tom, you came into. this house at 
such a time of night as a burglar, to rob us during 
sleep. We are not fools. You must be given over 
to the police. I will call up the station," she said im- 
patiently as she arose. 

Hamilton promptly called : "Wait a moment, mother. 
I want to talk to Tom before you do that." 

Tom twitched and moved restlessly in his chair 
fearing a drastic third degree, but such a thing was 
not on the program. Hamilton inquired pathetically: 
"Tom, tell me what got you into this business ? I sup- 
posed since we were at the revival together, from the 
sincere manner, in which you participated in it, and ex- 

90 






The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

perienced conversion, that you had really been born 
again and entered a religious life." 

"So I had," retorted Tom, "but you don't under- 
stand. I have always been religious. I am now. I 
have been converted several times before — by the Sal- 
vation Army, and Jerry McAuley's missions. Practic- 
ally all the yeggs I know are just as religious as you. 
People make a mistake when they think that because 
of the nature of our business we are not religious, or 
are heartless men. I tell you we are as big-hearted a 
class of men as you will find anywhere. One yegg will 
defend another with his life, and when one is sent .up 
the road or to the chair, his wife and children never 
suffer. I don't believe I ever met a yegg who was not 
religious. Our oaths to each other are more truly 
religious, and are more religiously kept than any others 
in the world. A masonic oath is not in it by the side of 
ours. We seldom go back on our oaths. He who does 
is a dead man, believe me. 

"You know how soldiers on a fighting front become 
religious. You perhaps realize that their continual risk 
of life and the frequent presence of death has a lot to 
do with it, but you don't seem to think that they are 
killing any one. They kill thousands to our one. We 
kill only in self defense. Our sins are forgiven in an- 
swer to our prayers. If Jesus saves, he saves us, for 
we believe and we have the same promise of everlasting 
life that you have. Any yegg can tell you that Jesus 
and the disciples stole corn on Sunday, and Jesus ap- 



91 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

proved it. You leave it to us. We know what we are 
about." 

Hamilton and his mother sat horror-stricken at 
Tom's recital. They did not know what to make of 
it. They had never heard the like of it before — such 
an alleged partnership between religion and crime. 
Not the crime of a rash act, or of misfortune and 
starvation, but that of professional thieves, highway- 
men, and burglars, whose getaway justifies murder 
whenever their victim stands between them and liberty. 

Hamilton was nonplussed, too astonished to speak.. 
He felt a sensation as of a ball in his throat, which 
caused him to indulge in laborious swallowing to admit 
of a continuation of respiration. At last he found 
voice to ask Tom how long he had been a yegg. The 
latter answered: "Ever since I was a little kid I have 
helped to pull off jobs. I joined a yegg club and finally 
helped to put over partnership deals. At first I acted 
as lookout, but later I did inside work." 

"And you were a professional yegg when you went 
with me to the revival that night ?" asked Hamilton. 

"Why certainly," responded Tom. "On account of 
our little lark I nearly missed a date to go out with a 
bunch, but they waited till I came, although they 
thought I had given them the go-by." 

"And you pulled off a burglary that night?" in- 
quired Hamilton. 

"Certainly," answered Tom. "I was just going 



92 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

around to size up the situation when I met you. That 
was one job that we tackled without a preliminary." 

"Oh, Hamilton!" impetuously ejaculated Mrs. 
Wheeler, "Tom is a regular burglar, and I must call the 
police at once to take him away." 

"No mother, I am going to let Tom go when I am 
through with him. I want to talk with him first, then 
— then I am going to tell him to go and sin no more." 
A faint smile stole across Tom's face. He was not 
afraid of Hamilton so long as he had a story about 
Hamilton that had not yet been told. 

Hamilton was fearful that the one knowing his 
secret so intimately, being such an unscrupulous man, 
would make the worst possible use of it. Blackmail is 
as common, and often more to be feared than burglary. 
Tom was in position to make Hamilton a lot of 
trouble, and make it cost his mother or his uncle a lot 
of money. He could not afford to make a misstep at 
this time. 

Turning to his mother Hamilton said: "Mother, I 
want to have a confidential talk with Tom, and per- 
haps it will be less embarrassing if you retire." 

Mrs. Wheeler looked searchingly at Tom and then 
at Hamilton, then replied : "I will go, and* I hope you 
do your utmost to make Tom see the error of his ways. 
Though he may be already religious, certainly he yet 
needs to be converted to righteousness. Good night, 
Tom. I trust you will see the evil of your ways and 
make this your last burglary." 

93 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Good night, Mrs. Wheeler," responded Tom with a 
grin, "thank you for your good wishes." 

As soon as all was quiet, Hamilton beckoned Tom 
to the living room, farther from Mrs. Wheeler's room, 
and gestured to him to be seated. Then he said gravely : 
"Tom, I had the bead on you, and if I had killed you 
here in our apartment with your gun and dark lan- 
tern, no one would have blamed me. In fact, I would 
have been hailed as a hero for killing a burglar in the 
act of robbing our home. I would have put an end to 
you, and dead men tell no stories. I did not do it, 
not because I could not, Tom, but because it was you. 
Even though you were willing to rob us and share the 
plunder with another or others, I could not kill you. 
All the years I have known you, and in ignorance of 
your secret vocation, I have had a warm feeling in my 
heart for you, which is not easy to dispel. You have 
said that you yeggmen are so religious and so re- 
ligiously keep your oaths, I am going to give you your 
freedom provided that you take an oath on the Bible 
never to tell to anyone of the evening we spent to- 
gether, between the revival and Brooklyn, and that 
from this day you will never commit burglary again." 

Tom hesitated — stared blankly a few moments — then 
replied : "Hamilton, I will swear to the first all right, 
but the second is not as easy to keep. You see I have 
tried many times before to do that very thing. I am in 
with the gang. I have always undertaken a new job 
after making a resolution or promising somebody I 



94 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

would never do it again. You must remember that 
when a fellow gets in once, he gets in the strongest 
possible oath-bound attachments. Every man is bound 
to the organization, which is like a labor union, only 
worse. He is worse than a scab if he ever quits. 
Once enlisted, he is subject to call, like a soldier. 
Hauls have to be made and participation is obligatory 
to provide for the fraternal benevolences." 

Hamilton, who had been intently listening to Tom's 
narration of the ways of yeggmen, was truly dum- 
founded. He commented: "So the saying that: the 
worst of rmen are not all bad, is very true, but if you 
fellows would but work half as hard, tax your minds 
half as much for ingenuity, and go straight, you would 
have much less than half as much charity to maintain. 
It would seem, with all your organizations, that yegg- 
men would be easy to reach and to deal with collectively 
by uplift societies." 

"In one way they would," responded Tom. "We 
are known, not only to the police, politicians, and by 
many others, but by social workers, settlement work- 
ers. We have our Angels of Mercy who devote their 
lives to us. They help us when we are broke and help 
in keeping up our charities when we fall down on them. 
They come in and pray with us. Like many others, 
they seem to think we are not religious enough, and if 
we were only more so we would brace up. They come 
in and work us all up into hysterias, so we have to 
tank up after it. They never seem to understand that 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

we are already more religious than they are, so they 
continue in the same old way, year in and year out. 
We like it all right, so long as it doesn't interfere with 
pulling off a job. Sometimes we have to get rid of 
them on that account." 

What a mixture of the sublime, and of infamy and 
criminality thought Hamilton. "Why," he observed, 
"do not these politicians, police, and others, put a stop 
to it if they are so intimate with it all the time?" 

"Because," retorted Tom, "the men whom you put in 
all your public offices are so corrupt that they are 
worse than we are. They tax us, but do not disturb 
us otherwise, Whenever they want a trick pulled for 
them, at election time, to pack a meeting, to stampede 
a district, to make a demonstration, to put someone 
out of the way, they call on us. We have to pay our 
debts to them then. Some officers hit us so hard for 
dough, we have to pull of f a few extra jobs to get the 
wherewithal." 

Hamilton arose, and offering his hand to Tom, said : 
"Tom, you certainly are in a bad mixup. If ever I can 
help you to separate yourself from your criminal as- 
sociates and begin a new life, let me know. I will do 
what I can, and will ask aid of others in your behalf." 

Tom stood motionless till Hamilton had finished, then 
grasped his hand heartily and said with trembling and 
sobbing tones: "I wish I could say now I would ac- 
cept your kind offer, but I must make my change more 
slowly. As soon as I reach the street my lookouts will 

96 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

not believe me when I tell them I have no swag to 
divide. I will tell you the outcome later." 

As Tom was now ready to start out to join his yegg 
associates Hamilton called to his mother to bring in a 
small Bible which was in an adjoining room. Mrs. 
Wheeler complied as soon as she could slip on her 
dressing gown again, and handing the volume to Ham- 
ilton, returned to her room. Tom now placed his 
hand upon the book which lay on Hamilton's out- 
stretched palm, and took a solemn oath strictly accord- 
ing to his agreement, and then reverently leaned for- 
ward and kissed the book as he removed his hand. 

Tom now picked up his hat and started toward the 
door. Hamilton thought of the gun which his mother 
had laid on the table in the other room, and as Tom 
opened the outer door he called to him : "Haven't you 
forgotten something?" 

Tom looked blankly a moment and exclaimed : "Oh, 
yes, the gun. I may need that to get home on. The 
men outside are armed, and I have been gone so long 
they will probably accuse me of hiding the swag to 
avoid dividing with the gang." 

Hamilton had first thought of emptying it of its 
cartridges before delivering it to Tom, but finally 
handed it to him as it was. Tom looked into the 
cylinder to see if its loads were intact, and seeing that 
they were, he thrust it into his pocket and crept noise- 
lessly down the stairs. 

Hamilton now turned back to his room and flung 

97 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

himself into his bed. The excitement of the occasion 
had served to nerve him up to its demands, but 
now he was all in. His collapse was apparent, and his 
present exhaustion was complete. He soon fell into a 
heavy and labored sleep which carried him late into 
the morning before Mrs. Wheeler came to awaken him. 
After his breakfast he felt somewhat better, but even 
then he experienced a continual sense of irritable 
weakness and of exhaustion. 

All day Hamilton was dazed. He could hardly 
believe his own senses. It all seemed like a dream. 
How could one be at once so criminal and so religious ? 
He had always been taught to regard religion and 
morals as practically one and the same, and one as in- 
separable from the other. Such could not have been 
the case with Tom. He was a professional criminal, 
and yet more religious than Hamilton ever dreamed of 
being. Tom's religion put Hamilton's to shame, and yet 
thought he, he is a professional burglar. 

Hamilton was so completely dumfounded he could 
not rest until he had looked up the Criminal in some 
authoritative work. In the afternoon he hurried over 
to the nearest Carnegie branch of the New York Public 
Library. At the desk he asked for the best popular 
work on the Criminal. The obliging librarian deliv- 
ered to him a copy of Havelock Ellis's work The 
Criminal, of the Contemporary Scientific Series. Ham- 
ilton sat down at once and turned over the leaves ner- 
vously without avail, then opening the index he was 



98 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

led to pages which explained the whole paradox. Ham- 
ilton looked aghast at the open book. There it was, 
not designed to meet his exigency, yet it read that in- 
nate criminals are innately and naturally religious. 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter VII. 

BOYLIKE, Hamilton had now forgotten the ill 
effects of his revival experiences. He was 
feeling fairly well again, and at week ends, 
after a five days' stretch of unremittent sedentary 
school work, he was aching for relaxation and di- 
version. His experience with the girl he accompanied 
home from the revival service, on his last attendance, 
had not brought any serious results, so far as he knew. 
He was ready for another venture when a month had 
rolled around, and on another Friday night he sought 
his school friend Douglas Everts to accompany him 
on another visit to the tabernacle. 

Douglas Everts was a very different type of boy 
from either of Hamilton's last companions. He was 
a manly young fellow with a fine sense of high grade 
good fellowship. He had little sex interest in the 
girls, though he was fond of tennis bouts with the 
boys and girls equally divided. He was gallant and 
polite to the fair sex in general, but it ended there. At 
the revival he was always respectful of the religious 
sentiments of the others, though he had been brought 
up a skeptic. 

On this occasion Hamilton and his companion went 
early to the tabernacle to insure themselves a seat, 
and perhaps a desirable location. When they arrived, 
a full hour before the service was announced to begin, 
a goodly number were already seated and people were 

100 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

coming from all directions. Some cars were so full 
that they appeared like those of the morning and 
evening rush hours of going down and returning from 
the industrial and trade centers of the city. The boys 
hurried down to the middle of the great shed, and 
began their tiresome task of holding their seats until 
the time set for beginning. 

Long before the opening of the service every seat 
was occupied, and competition for standing room was 
apparent. Even before this the boys were tired of 
the hard and uncomfortable seats, and were stiffened 
and restless at their fixed positions and restrictions to 
voluntary movement. They touched elbows with each 
other, and with strangers on either side of them. 
They -felt strongly a desire to move about, but to leave 
their seats meant losing them, so they endured the dis- 
comfort pending the diversion they anticipated during 
the evening with its divers interesting occurrences. 
The air in the building was already becoming vitiated, 
and the thought occurred, what will it be before the 
service is over ? At last the music started up, and the 
buzz of voices from all parts of the great structure 
was hushed while the great audience stared in tense 
expectancy. 

The prodigious choir filled the air with a volume of 
promiscuous singing. The Choir Master wayed and 
frantically gestured with both arms and hands to 
bring the great chaos of voices into measured ca- 
dences. The choir with eyes riveted on their leader 

101 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

soon got into time and tune, and the inflections and 
rhythm of the characteristically measured hymns, and 
the swing and sway of the music dominated the entire 
congregation. 

After the singing of two hymns, a call was made 
for all Christians to stand. While Hamilton had been 
brought up as a Christian by a Christian and churched 
mother, no thought had been given or anxiety felt as 
to his entering church life before he had attained his 
majority, or at least finished school. Since he had 
never joined a church, however, he did not stand with 
the majority of those present or when those who 
stood kept standing while the spotters went about 
identifying the non-Christians. He noticed himself 
observed by those about him, and felt a sense of em- 
barrassment and mortification. He would have been 
glad to stand, if only to release himself from his long- 
maintained immobility, but he sat transfixed in his 
seat. He felt a sense of relief when it was over, and 
another hymn was announced. It happened to be 
"Onward Christian Soldiers/' one with which he was 
very familiar, and he joined in singing it with consid- 
erable heartiness. It proved to be a source of relaxa- 
tion and a vent for his repressed energy. 

This song which Hamilton knew was succeeded by 
two others which were new to him, and were the Choir 
Master's exclusively, being typically revival in type. 
They were sung almost entirely by the choir, but they 
had a peculiar swing to them which was fascinating, 
and Hamilton found himself involuntarily conforming 
102 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

to their rhythm. He was carrying the tune in his head, 
but was not participating in the singing. His very 
breathing appeared to conform rhythmically with the 
music. At the end he had a peculiar sense of disturbed 
breathing, which to him was rather unique and strange. 
At the finish of the succeeding hymns his breathing 
had assumed a stammering character. There was an 
odd irregularity of breathing and sense of air hunger 
which brought forth a series of yawns. He noticed 
also that others about him were yawning, and he 
wondered if all cases were due to a common cause 
or to spreading by contagion. 

Upon completion of the last song, at a signal from 
the Choir Master, the Evangelist sprang to the plat- 
form and promptly began a rapid fire of discussion 
of a scripture text, followed by a prayer. Many 
pointed remarks and invectives seemed to affect Ham- 
ilton greatly. Some of them appearel to shock him 
with concussive force. Others seemed to be vice-like 
in their repressive violence. Every word appeared 
as if directed at him, which produced a sense akin to 
stage fright and of vivid intimidation. 

Another song service brought so much breathless- 
ness that Hamilton was frightened at his very im- 
pressionability. The utterances of the Evangelist pre- 
ceding it had emotionally depressed him, and the 
hymn seemed to increase rather than decrease his 
breathlessness. His heart pounded hard and rapidly 
against the chest walls, and a sense of oppression in 

102 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

the lungs and of an iron band about the head dis- 
tressed him. The rapidity of breathing was increased, 
but it appeared that the most manifest change was the 
shortening and quickening of the expirations. It 
seemed that he expired three times to every inspira- 
tion. 

Hamilton's companion, Douglas, had noticed the 
pallor, and later a leaden hue of his face, that his 
lips had lost their red color, as well as that his breath- 
ing was perceptibly irregular. He was frightened 
and uncertain of conditions that he did not under- 
stand. He leaned over and spoke to Hamilton to 
satisfy himself that everything was all right. Hamil- 
ton turned to answer. His lips quivered, but he did 
not at first find voice. Finally, on renewed effort, he 
whispered: "I feel so dizzy and heavy, so tight 
across the chest and about the head. My ears ring 
and flashes of light appear before my eyes." His 
nostrils were dilated, and his mouth and eyes were 
widely open. When asked if he did not want to go 
out in the fresh air, he answered laboriously: "No, 
I will be all right in a few moments." 

In a short time Hamilton had reacquired a degree of 
equilibrium. The Evangelist had begun his discourse, 
to the first part of which Hamilton was completely 
oblivious. The emphatic and violent words, gestures, 
and contortions, had created a furor which stirred 
even Hamilton to attention. On and on proceeded 
the challenges, accusations, and affirmations, authori- 

104 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

tatively emphatic and repeated over and over. Re- 
buffs, reproofs, and rebukes, came in bombardment 
impulses. His speech, always rapid, seemed to get 
faster and faster as he proceeded, and as it became 
progressively faster, Hamilton became more and more 
mentally confused. 

The eyes and ears were completely occupied with 
the voice and movements of the Evangelist. The at- 
tention was completely absorbed. There was no room 
for any fugitive thoughts. The harangue fell upon 
the audience as a continual succession of browbeat- 
ings in sledge-hammer blows, producing a series of 
emotional recoils. If one could but give vent to the 
emotion generated by such an exhibition of loquacity 
and agility by some kind of reflected or echoed activity, 
instead of such complete fixation demanded by re- 
strictions of movement and by the decorum of a re- 
ligious congregation, what a relief it would be. The 
inability to give physical vent to the response phenom- 
enon elicited by so much and such great sensorial 
stimulus, in this subject of super-impressionability and 
lack of control, caused a sense of bursting of all 
bounds, restraining him from freedom of functional 
expression. 

There seemed to be no relief at hand. The Evan- 
gelist continuing unremittingly his harangue, poured 
his stream of abuse, accusation, intimidation, and posi- 
tive affirmation, alternatingly exciting the emotions 
of sympathy, pity, grief, and fear. Almost every act 

105 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

of one's life is emphatically condemned as sin. All 
the pleasures and enjoyments of life are represented 
as exciters of the wrath of his God. Hamilton's sense 
of sin weighed him down with overwhelming depres- 
sion and dread of terrible consequences for each and 
every joy. The Evangelist's suggestion of death of 
the unsaved brought a shudder of despair. 

With the lapse of time, Hamilton felt his feelings 
growing worse rather than better. The sensation of 
anguish extended throughout his body, the sensation 
of giddiness and faintness became more and more pro- 
nounced, and his general feeling more distressing. 
The sense of fullness and oppression of the lungs and 
of a band around the head was augmented. His breath- 
ing was so difficult he involuntarily sighed and inaud- 
ibly sobbed. Then came paroxysms of a sort of stumb- 
ling of breathing. Finally the distress was followed by a 
benumbing of the senses, all perceptions became more 
and more vague, the mind seemed to become clouded 
and progressively submerged by a sense of drunken- 
ness. Everything at all discernible seemed to be in 
a whirl. In his weakness he gradually succumbed to 
exhaustion and relaxation. His legs moved con- 
vulsively as he collapsed into a faint. 

There was now a suppressed commotion in the seats 
about Hamilton. Two men quickly appeared at the 
aisle end of the row, and requested those between 
them and the unconscious youth to give way. He was 
then quietly carried to the adjoining hospital where 

106 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

everything was anticipated and ready for resuscitation 
of just such cases as his. It was not long before Ham- 
ilton began to revive. He looked about strangely and 
inquired where he was, how he came there, and other 
like questions. As soon as he had recovered, his 
name and address were taken on a card by one of the 
attendants, and he was asked if he would go into the 
auditorium and take the Evangelist by the hand. This 
he declined, and he was later accompanied home by his 
friend Douglas, who had remained with him through- 
out his hour of trial. 

When the Wheeler home was reached, Mrs. Wheeler 
answered the door, and at her first glance at Hamilton 
she almost shrieked: "What has happened to my 
boy?" Hamilton staggered into her arms. His strength 
had barely borne him to his home. His face and lips 
were still livid and his features showed only too plainly 
what agony he had been through. As soon as his 
companion explained that Hamilton had merely fainted 
at the revival, Mrs. Wheeler's whole thought was that 
he would be all right as soon as he had the recupera- 
tion of a good night's sleep. 

That night Hamilton slept heavily, as one exhausted 
by overwork, and except for frequent convulsive move- 
ments of the arms and legs, and changes of body 
position, the stertorous character of his breathing 
would almost indicate coma. Mrs. Wheeler could not 
sleep, but lay wakeful in anxious thought. As day- 
light gradually dawned she waited with what patience 

107 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

she could muster, glancing at the clock at short inter- 
vals. At last when it struck the hour of seven she lost 
no time in reaching the telephone and calling up Dr. 
Austin. She pressed him not to wait for his break- 
fast but to hurry over and breakfast with her. 

A half hour had not elapsed when the door bell an- 
nounced Dr. Austin's arrival. Mrs. Wheeler at once 
invited him into the dining room, and the twain sat 
down at the table together. Gazing about him for a 
moment, the Doctor inquired : "Where is Hamilton ?" 
Mrs. Wheeler cast her eyes down to the floor sorrow- 
fully, paused, then answered: "Hamilton is not up 
yet. He attended the revival again last night and col- 
lapsed, was revived in the tabernacle hospital and 
brought home in a taxi. He was in a deplorable con- 
dition when he was gotten to the door by one of his 
friends, who went with him and who had faithfully 
remained with him throughout' the evening." 

Dr. Austin was so agitated he could hardly eat, 
but Mrs. Wheeler had betrayed so much emotion in 
her recital of what had taken place that he sought to 
calm himself, to suppress all emotional expression, that 
he might exert a quieting influence over his niece. As 
cautiously as possible and with great deliberation, Dr. 
Austin alternately partook of the breakfast before 
him and questioned Mrs. Wheeler regarding the boy in 
whose life he was so interested. Soon they had 
reached the end of Mrs. Wheeler's knowledge, and the 
subject was changed pending the finishing of the meal, 

108 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

when at the Doctor's request they retired to Hamilton's 
room. 

As they entered the room Hamilton appeared ob- 
livious of their presence. Dr. Austin placed a chair 
close to the side of the bed, and seating himself 
quietly took Hamilton's wrist in his hand without dis- 
turbing him. He was cautious not to annoy or ir- 
ritate his nephew while in his present precarious state. 
He noted the rapid pulse and respiration, the height- 
ened reflexes, and general hyperesthesia, the fact that 
every street noise seemed to startle and annoy him. A 
reaction from the exhaustion of the night before had 
set in, and the greatest care must be taken not to excite 
the senses or the emotions. As near absolute quiet as 
possible must be maintained. 



109 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter VIII. 

MRS. WHEELER anxiously pressed Dr. Aus- 
tin to tell her frankly if Hamilton's disastrous 
conversion indicated a previous mental de- 
ficiency which might sooner or later have developed 
into marked deterioration, had he never come under 
the influence of a revivalist. This appeared greatly to 
agitate the Doctor. Mrs. Wheeler noticed a frown 
come over his face. She feared she had trespassed 
into a forbidden field. She regretted asking it, and if 
she could, would have withdrawn her words. While 
she was thus pondering, he interrupted her thoughts 
and observed gravely : 

"My dear Helen, you have asked a vital question. 
I hardly need assure you that Hamilton was as fine 
a specimen of humanity, both mentally and physically, 
as New York ever could boast. That fact alone makes 
his present despoilation distinctly more criminal. True, 
he was temporarily depleted by overstudy, and if I had 
my way he would have taken a rest and at least some 
recuperation at the risk of another year's preparatory 
work, before beginning his college course. However, 
in any event, did he continue to the end of the term, 
nothing like this would probably have occurred if only 
he had kept away from that man-destroying revival. 
The most that one can say is that his overwork, by 
producing a state of irritable weakness, which both 
of us have heretofore observed and discussed, had 
made him susceptible to the evangelistic process. 
110 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"We must in the first place recognize that people 
of all types, races, ages, and sexes are more or less 
amenable to crowd psychology which caters directly to 
the senses and over-balances the reason. Even the 
lower animals, horses, cattle, and sheep, among the 
domesticated animals, become activated by most in- 
significant beginnings. Perhaps on suddenly startling 
and activating to panic a single one of them, the rest, 
influenced by the contagion of the commotion, the im- 
petus and momentum of collective movement, will join, 
and a whole herd will fling itself headlong in a wild 
stampede which will finally end in death or in such 
maiming that their ultimate slaughter is the only al- 
ternative. 

"We observe the stampeding of human crowds, not 
only in revivals, but in other religious crowds, which, 
when led by fanatical agitators as in incidents which 
occurred recently at Walla Walla, Wash., Marshall, 
Texas, and Haverhill, Mass., leads to riot, murder, the 
destruction of property, and commisson of all manner 
of crimes and outrages which the individual members 
would never think of committing separately. The 
Crusades, the fanatical holy wars of history, and the 
Belgium and Northern France crimes of the Germans, 
are, perhaps in part, examples. Strike riots, Southern 
lynchings, and some political disturbances which ex- 
tend beyond control, are examples. In all of the in- 
stances of mob stampedes, the crowds are by our laws 
held guilty equally with their leaders, but any reputable 

111 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

alienist or psychologist will bear me out in the statement 
that the leaders, the agitators, are almost wholly to 
blame, and stringent laws should be enacted cor- 
respondingly for their adequate punishment. Without 
such laws, present indications are that both nation- 
ally and individually we will come to grief, for the mob 
is blind to sequence, even to itself. 

"Pardon me, Helen, I have digressed from my sub- 
ject. This theme is so important and universal in its 
relations and applications, it is difficult to keep within 
its narrower limitations. I trust, however, you will 
come to a realization of the almost universalness of the 
fundamental principles involved in revivals. 

"Hamilton has simply been excited, emotionalized, 
terrorized, and stampeded into a condition of mental 
decrepitude and a helpless capitulation which they 
term conversion. They have overwhelmed him with 
mental confusion, clouding of consciousness, disorien- 
tation, and such disorders and falsifications of percep- 
tion as hallucinations and illusions, and thus rendered 
him prone to delusion. The full significance of this I 
can make comprehensible to you only by going into 
considerable detail, and elucidating it to you step by 
step. Of fundamental importance is a true concept of 
the dynamic elements of our physical and mental func- 
tions, and their inter-relationships as exhibited in out- 
ward expressions. 

"Erroneous concepts of the product of the mental 
function," explained Dr. Austin, "are responsible for 

112 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

much false superstructure built upon them as bases. 
I cannot emphasize too strongly the obvious fact that 
thought is not an entity or any kind of a pre-existing 
divine or spiritual essence, which is in the possession 
of a person or soul and which is projected into the 
outer world as a voluntary or freewill act of an indi- 
vidual, as is vaguely intimated in modern religious 
teachings, but is a reaction product, while the will 
is the dynamic factor or element exhibited in its ex- 
pression. 

"We often speak of an impulsive person as being 
wilful, whereas we mean he is contrary, and acts out 
of conformity with mature reason. The more im- 
pulsive such persons are, the more directly and 
exclusively is the thought and act a reaction, 
and thus unelaborated by the interreaction of 
the sum of past experience with current perceptions 
which they elaborate to a degree corresponding to the 
maturity of any deliberation. The greater the degree 
of this maturity of deliberative elaboration that is at- 
tained, the greater is the exhibition of what we call 
will or volition, which is the term we give to the col- 
lective discernments, discriminations and decisions, 
which govern our really premeditated acts. The sum 
of these constitute the will, and the greater the elabor- 
ation, the more independent and intentional is the 
will. 

"Acts of will or volition are typically those of con- 
sciousness only. Automatic performances are not vo- 

113 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

litional. Impulsive acts may be volitional or not cor- 
respondingly as they are conscious or automatic. If 
they attract the attention, we say they are intentional, 
but should say attentional. 

"The will cannot exist without some degree of con- 
scious thought, notwithstanding that thought can ex- 
ist without that expression of physical motive force 
which would give it a value of volition. Of the two 
factors the will is the dynamic element, yet we have 
expressions of this dynamic element apart from, or 
other than as a product of conscious thought, which 
are not those of the will. Physical motive force, com- 
pletely segregated from conscious thought is not the 
will, and conversely, thought, minus this outward ex- 
pression of physical motive force, does not exhibit voli- 
tion. 

"The physical motive force of an act must not be 
confounded with the will. Impulsive acts are generally 
more forceful and violent than the deliberated ones, 
but they are less sustained. The rash and criminal act, 
the violentreaction to fear, or to fright that does not 
paralyze, may be superforceful, yet involve very little 
of what we denominate the will. Conversely, the elab- 
orated product of adequate deliberation is seldom, if 
ever, violent. The exhibited strength of the insane 
is sometimes so violent that a half dozen normal men 
may be necessary to restrain them, yet no expression of 
discrimination is exhibited. We have exhibited force 
uncontrolled, unmodified. 

114 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"The physical motive force of pur acts, that many of 
these false teachings construe as the will, is the same 
vital product, the same dynamic force, which is man- 
ifested in wholly automatic acts, in the insane, and in 
the partially deliberated acts of impulsive individuals. 
We have in the observation of evangelistic effects upon 
the individual revival auditors, one of a violent sen- 
sory stimulus, the normal physical reaction of which 
is impossible at the time of their reception, and there- 
fore an accumulation of unvented physical motive force 
generated by the stimulus incited, the stress of which 
mounts progressively higher and higher until in the 
weak, the hyperesthetic, and emotional, restraint be- 
comes impossible and it is vicariously given impulsive 
and explosive-like expression in the so-called conver- 
sion that ultimately releases the pent up energy. 

"Conversion itself is a most peculiar thing. When 
a person becomes insane with the accompaniment of 
fixed delusions, the subject of the delusion is generally 
the subject upon which the individual has been pre- 
viously obsessed while on the road to a state of com- 
plete unbalance. For some time a person exhibits ec- 
centricities, and as we say is 'daffy' on religion, on 
love, or anything which has been violently imposed 
upon him, or has been the subject of prolonged mor- 
bid meditation, which is in line with the type of in- 
sanity. For example, in one in great exaltation, or as 
the French term it, Grandeur, the delusion often takes 
the form of an imagination that the subject is a King, 

115 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Emperor, or Grandee; and if based on a religious ob- 
session, that he is Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, an Apostle, 
Saint, Satan, etc., according to his religion. 

"When the conditions are right for it, a simple sug- 
gestion may determine the character of the delusion, 
just as in the hypnotic state. In the phenomena of con- 
version it is surprising to what extent that spoken and 
latent suggestion determine the fixed ideas which direct 
or control the status, objective, and direction, of the 
over-generated physical motive force which is then 
seeking outward expression. It may in one case be- 
come an obsession or a complete delusion. Personally, 
I cannot regard the prolonged fixation of ideas which 
come as suggestion in convulsive or impulsive conver- 
sions as anything other than a degree of delusion, 
whether the victim becomes completely unbalanced 
or not. The best one can do is to pronounce them 
harmless delusions, and I am personally convinced 
that they are injurious to the extent of their profundity, 
and conversely, they are harmless only to the degree 
of their superficiality.* 

"Whenever I meet a person who avers positively a 
fixed conviction that Jesus is his savior, asserts the 
reality of a living Christ or God, or that Jesus is a 
genuine historical character, or that the Vedas, the 
Dhamnapada, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the 
Bible, the Koran, or other textbook of any religion are 
authentic and genuine works of their gods or christs, 
that their gods or saviors, saints, spirits, or devils, are 

*See Appendix B. 
116 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

by them sensed as near them, 'the divine immanence,' 
in which cases they base their conclusions solely upon 
what they term experience, and a fixed conviction 
which is not based upon the consideration of credible 
facts, I have no hesitancy in pronouncing such a 
pseudo-perception as a full-fledged delusion, just as I 
would if the same thing was the effect of secular or 
non-religious causes. 

"It is interesting that the period of great predomin- 
ance of conversion is the age of puberty. At this crit- 
ical age the boy or girl experiences the dawn of the 
sexual impulse. At first it comes as an uninterpreted 
desire, an ardor, a fervor, with little direction or ob- 
jective. When this is by direct and latent suggestion 
caused to be falsely interpreted through religious 
teaching and induced conviction or a well defined con- 
version, the child enters adolescence in a state of defin- 
ite delusion. 

"Children are particularly susceptible and liable to 
hallucinations, both induced and accidental. The rea- 
son of this is undoubtedly to be found in the pre- 
disposition of the low density tissues of childhood, 
which are so highly receptive, and are prone naturally 
to react with precocity, excessive velocity of transmis- 
sion of impulses, and immaturity of deliberation. 

"This tissue of low density, with its typical paroxys- 
mal or spasmodic nature of reaction, when subjected 
to sensorial bombardment and impact violence, becomes 
hyperesthetic, its reaction becoming tetanic and cramp- 

117 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

like, then passing into a state of rigor which is per- 
petuated, and the physical basis of the hallucinations 
and delusions are then superinduced. In view of this, 
the most critical period of childhood is seized upon by 
evangelists. Statistics appear to show that fifty per- 
cent or more of conversions during the entire span of 
life, occur during adolescence and beginning at this 
critical age of sexual puberty; though they also occur 
even at the tender age of eight years.* 

"In perhaps the majority of cases, this critical period 
of life is taken advantage of to stampede the tender 
young folk by the violence of the emotional excitement 
of a convulsive conversion. Especial pains are taken 
to march great numbers of school children to revivals, 
devoting special meetings to them, that they may be 
the better influenced by contagion from one to the 
other. 

"The child at puberty is the most hyperesthetic of all 
adolescence, and as such is super-sensitive, super-irrit- 
able, super-impressionable and super-suggestible. It is 
an age when above all others of life he should be 
shielded and guarded from all possible excitations of 
the emotions and impure influences. If he safely sur- 
vives this critical period the balance of adolescence is 
relatively easy for him in a moral way, though with 
the progressive development of self restraint and con- 
trol, he also becomes retrogressively less amenable to 
religious conversion. 

"When a child at puberty is excited to a profound 

*See Appendix A. 
118 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

emotional conversion, not only is the sexual instinct, 
by suggestion, caused to be delusively interpreted as a 
supernatural sense of 'immanence,' and as a convic- 
tion or transfixion of a non-deliberated decision, but it 
is also coincidently stimulated — sexually. We then 
have a most closely related association between religion 
and lust, to be followed through life by recurrence of 
sexual excitement coincident with the religious. Prob- 
ably in this way a part of our observed correlation be- 
tween religion and lust is first established. 

"In books, which you will find in any average public 
library, on primitive peoples and of the childhood of 
humanity, you will observe numerous instances of re- 
ligio-sexual initiation of both sexes at puberty. I will 
not at this time undertake to go into their erotic natures 
and practices, but prefer that you read them yourself. 
I might, however, suggest that you read : 'Adolescence 
and Religion' by Theodore Schroeder, in the Journal of 
Religious Psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 124-148) ; or The 
Adolescent Girl Among Primitive Peoples' by Miriam 
Van Waters, in the same Journal (Vol. 6, pp. 375-421 
and Vol. 7, pp. 75-120). These you can probably ob- 
tain at the Public Library here. If then you look into 
the licentious practices and conduct of the peoples that 
so initiate their young at puberty, you will understand 
perhaps the lesser degree of licentiousness which is ani- 
mated by puberty conversions of our own civilized peo- 
ple, and appreciate as you never did before the intimate 
relation of emotional religion and lust. 

119 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"I have told you all this to soften your outraged 
feelings that have been aroused when Hamilton exhib- 
ited a sexual conversion with the emotional excitement 
of his religious conversion. Hamilton is now eighteen, 
and I feel strongly that when we restore him to nor- 
mal equilibrium and stability, his former character 
will be re-established and his hereditary temperament 
will be reasserted. 

"Hamilton was somewhat more susceptible than the 
average man, owing primarily to his age. The critical 
period of adolescence is a prime factor with both the 
sexes. Some of the most eminent medical men of 
Europe have recognized this fact, and issued warnings 
to keep children away from revivals and similar 
places where their emotions would be highly wrought, 
but I note that these warnings are not only disre- 
garded, but to the contrary, special pains are taken to 
accomplish the violent emotional conversion of children 
and adolescents generally, just as our educators compel 
haste in study, notwithstanding that the psychologist- 
philosopher John Locke condemned it ages ago. It ap- 
pears to be the ambition of the evangelicals to have 
people acquire their convictions and prejudices at an 
age when they are least competent to judge wisely, 
and I observe, in direct opposition to medical au- 
thority, that a professor in one of our city divinity 
schools advises the churches to hasten the harvest of 
the young. 

"Dr. Clement Dukes, in his article, The Hygiene of 
120 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Youth/ Allbutt's System of Medicine, Vol. I, p. 463, 
which I have here, wrote : 'It is most mischievous to 
tamper with the emotions of the young, for they 
are so unstable during this period of life as to be 
certain to run into channels unforeseen and undesired. 
Even religious fervour, if excessive, is often perverted 
into the shape of sexual immorality. In youth the 
appetites, desires and passions awake, untempered by 
reason, uninstructed by experience, so that at no time 
of life is steadfast guidance and help more essential. 
Yet how few boys — and still fewer girls — receive the 
needful aid from their home training; a policy of 
silence is substituted with results frequently disastrous.' 
Yet with sinister motives, in behalf of recruiting, this 
theological professor, the Rev. George A. Coe, in his 
'Spiritual Life/ p. 54, which I also have in my hand, 
wrote: 'The mental condition during adolescence is 
particularly favorable to deep religious impressions. 
This is ihe time that the child becomes competent to 
make a deeply personal life choice; such a choice is 
now easier than either before or after; this, accord- 
ingly, is the time at which a wise church will expect 
to reap its chief harvest of members/ Here Mr. Coe 
voices the keynote of evangelical policy to harvest its 
victims during the critical period of adolescence. An- 
other religious psychologist, Edward S. Ames, ex- 
presses a spirit kindred to that of Coe : The demand 
of the church, under an increasing realization of ten- 
sion between it and many developments of modern 



121 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

society, has been for a more efficient method of win- 
ning its own children and securing recruits from the 
world.' This is not quite so blunt as Coe's admonition, 
but it is not difficult of interpretation. 

"Thus you observe that the propaganda of harvest- 
ing the young is a deep laid policy of the evangelical 
church in general, but after all it is the evangelist who 
is the executioner. He is the real commissioner of the 
crime. He is the one who deliberately, and for a com- 
mercial consideration far beyond what he could obtain 
in any other field, stoops to crowd hypnotism in order 
to attain his base designs. He is the real culprit whom 
future officers of the law will hold guilty, and who 
future historians will chronicle as the arch ecclesiastical 
criminal of our generation. The reader of the future 
will marvel at our tolerance of such impositions in an 
age otherwise so highly developed." 

Mrs. Wheeler exclaimed : "Why Uncle ! I am 
shocked at your ideas of revivals and revivalists. I 
can't believe what you say so depreciative of the noted 
Evangelist and his great mission of saving souls. Cer- 
tainly he is the recognized head of the Protestant 
Christian Church of America. He has ample back- 
ing both in and out of clerical circles, of which no 
other can boast. No other minister preaches to such 
large congregations or receives such great rewards. 
He appropriates to himself the role of critic of the 
ministry in general, and apparently with their full 
knowledge and consent. He is not only the apparent 

122 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

arbiter of Christian theology and ministerial methods, 
but the whipmaster of the whole theological profes- 
sion." 

"I grant you all that," responded Dr. Austin, "but 
so much the worse for Christianity in general. What 
you say of this one, can be said of all evangelists. They 
all assume the tyranny with the prerogative of a mon- 
arch, and command submission and passive obedience 
of the clergy who band together to obtain a revivalist 
to accomplish for the wasted ranks what they have 
failed to achieve themselves. In doing this, they have 
to surrender everything to the ignorant blackguard 
and bully Evangelist, who in turn assumes the role of 
the superior or dictator to cultured clergymen. How 
can any one longer respect religion in the face of that? 

"Enough of that now. It is my wish to confine my- 
self to the scientific aspects of the morbid effects pro- 
duced by these hyenas, so we will return to the path- 
ological considerations. When they are fully set forth, 
the guilt of the despoilers of humanity will be made 
clear. 

"Any factor of religion, whether productive of re- 
ligion or as a product of religion, is morbid in its ac- 
tion upon man when it disturbs his normal equilibrium, 
his mental balance or stability. In fact, all religious 
causes of unbalance and instability are distinctly mor- 
bid and vicious in their effects upon humanity, and we 
can hardly escape the conclusion that what we have 
been taught to identify as supernatural phenomena, 

123 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

cannot be too soon recognized and treated as sub-nor- 
mal. 

"The normal man is weil balanced, well within the 
extremes of both optimism and pessimism, of exal- 
tation and depression, of temerity and timidity, of 
overbrightness and dullness, of hyperesthesia and an- 
esthesia, of credulity and skepticism, of emotionalism 
and stolidity. The normal state is characterized by 
poise and power of self-control, while the abnormal 
one is marked by loss of such power, and often chaotic 
fluctuation from one extreme to another. 

"If Hamilton fails to respond to my treatment, and 
drifts on into well defined insanity, we may expect the 
present instability to so increase that his mental state 
will fluctuate between mania and dementia, character- 
izing manic-depressive insanity. 

"As a result of long hours of fatiguing mental labor 
extending over several months, and unaccompanied by 
physical exercise, Hamilton acquired a softness of 
muscle and general loss of tissue density which, as you 
know, has been exhibited in irritable weakness, or what 
people usually call nervousness. One of the typical 
characters of general tissue softness is over-sensitive- 
ness and violence of all reaction. This is exhibited in 
reactions to impressions received through all of the five 
senses, thus involving super-susceptibility to mental 
or sensorial shock; and in fact all reactions are here 
characterized by a corresponding increase of sudden- 
ness, violence, and a paroxysmal type of reaction to all 
sense impressions. 
124 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"A person so affected is restless, uneasy, and prone 
to assume tensional and fixed postures, and to make 
frequent conscious readjustments of position. They 
appear unable to relax, however much they crave and 
need it. They are always tired from this constant and 
abnormal expenditure of energy. As may be expected, 
the reflex and all other reactions are paroxysmal or 
spasm-like in nature, but perhaps that does not convey 
in entirety the whole fact. Not only are the muscular 
reactions abrupt, jerky, and explosive in nature, but 
they are equally prone to tetany or paralytic fixation, 
or, as we say, to motor inhibition. However, in such 
cases, every sensory impression, one of the more ab- 
rupt and forceful ones in particular, is disposed to pro- 
duce a sense of recoil contraction or actual muscular 
rigidity, (catalepsy)." 

In his anxiety to clarify the subject to Mrs. Wheeler, 
Dr< Austin began at the bottom in its elucidation. He 
observed: "Perhaps the most fundamental factor un- 
derlying emotion and emotionalism is the density of 
tissue of an individual. General tissue density is nor- 
mally lowest at the earliest ages and highest in old 
age, lowest in women, highest in men, lowest in the 
sedentary, highest in the physically active, lowest in 
alcoholism and chronic invalidism, and highest in 
health. Hereditary weakness is very commonly due to 
deficient tissue density. When luxury gets into the 
blood, it is indicated by soft tissues. Soft tissues pre- 
dispose to, and in fact entail, emotionalism ; hardening 



125 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

is the best and only real cure. Thus the work cure 
has supplanted the rest cure for neurotics." 

Dr. Austin now proceeded to point out that the high- 
er the density of the tissues the greater is their ca- 
pacity to withstand sensorial perturbation without mo- 
tor reaction and without painful tension, and conversely 
that the lower the density (the softer the tissues) the 
sooner will come painful and motor outburst. "We 
speak," said he, "of capacity to withstand as a matter 
of strength, but we must not forget that the denser 
tissues are also the stronger in every way, though less 
violent, as they are slower in physical expression. 

"Emotionalism is said to be a state of redundance 
of motility, which suggests that it is an exhibition of 
an excess of motive force, whereas it is in reality one 
of lack or absence of capacity and control of motor 
reactions. The margin of safety is minus, and no 
elasticity remains for shock absorption. Thus an 
emotional person is more easily and quickly excited to 
his capacity limit of voluntary control and over the 
abyss into uncontrolled, involuntary, and even in- 
coordinated movement. Bear in mind that convulsions, 
the clonic contractions, as we call them, are but a pro- 
cess of breaking of the integrity of a tonic or a con- 
tinued rigid contraction, and the convulsion is always 
preceded by a tension or a rigid state of tonic con- 
traction, and is followed by exhaustion. 

"There is nothing more absurd in present-day 
psychology than the definitions of emotion. One says 

126 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

it is 'a trinity in unity,' whatever that is. Another 
states that it is 'an ultimate and primary aspect of 
mind,' an alpha and omega, as it were, and thus, 'emo- 
tion is emotion.' Too much is said of the emotions 
as entities, rather than as mental characters, aspects of 
mind, or dynamic physical expressions. Impulsive- 
ness and deficiently deliberated thought are products 
of the emotional mind. Panicky undeliberated acts are 
the same. Such features characterize individuals who 
are the arch dupes of evangelists. 

"An emotional person is an explosive thing, one 
that explodes in the absence of resistance, or of en- 
durance of the exciting cause. There is a parallel and 
direct relation between emotivity- and sensibility, so 
that we quite invariably find a super-sensibility and 
emotionalism combined in the same person. What 
causes one must cause the other. The high tension 
of the emotional state is followed both by reaction 
violence and irritability. 

"Thought and emotionalism are always antithetical 
to one another. Each declines with the ascendancy of 
the other, thus we master the mind by disciplining the 
organic functions involved in the emotions. Converse- 
ly, we find the powers of thought in abeyance to un- 
controlled emotions. 

Weak digestive organs and emotionalism go hand 
in hand. Nothing inhibits digestion so powerfully and 
quickly as acute or deep emotions, especially of the de- 
pressive type. A dyspeptic is always hit in the stom- 



127 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ach when convulsed by emotion. Very painful emo- 
tions even produce acute and serious dilation of the 
stomach. Pronounced diarrheas, biliousness, and jaun- 
dice are occasionally produced from powerful emotions. 
Thus the saying of the wit : 'They think they are pious 
when they are only bilious/ has a basis in fact. 

"When one comprehends what I have just men- 
tioned, it is but one more step to understand that intelli- 
gence is really a product of nutrition and all the pro- 
cesses of assimilation and appropriation, and that which 
inhibits vital processes correspondingly inhibits intelli- 
gence. Even if that factor of inhibition is emotion the 
effect is the same as the most physical in nature. The 
more sudden and intensive the emotion, the greater the 
motor effect. The immediate effect is muscular con- 
traction, with the dilation of exhaustion secondary to 
it, yet which may be of fatal sequence. 

"Another cause for the destroyed reason of emo- 
tional individuals, is the series of breaks in the contin- 
uity of thought occasioned by frequent minor emo- 
tional reactions to the thousand and one insignificant 
vicissitudes of life to which a normal person does not 
react, but which so breaks up consecutive thought that 
the victim becomes characterized by undue distracti- 
bility of attention, by desultoriness of thought, and 
eventually by incoherent speech. The same super- 
sensitiveness and emotional status which are respon- 
sible for the vivid emotional forms, such as fear, grief, 
anger, joy, enthusiasm, etc., are determining factors 

128 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

of delusion causation. When these latter effects are 
produced, the alienist must pronounce the case a lun- 
atic." 

Mrs. Wheeler listened attentively, even spellbound, 
at what she regarded as a marvelous grasp of the 
situation. She remarked that she had no idea so much 
was known to humanity. She could not help but think, 
how but a short time ago, a friend who had recently 
become fascinated with Christian Science, had told her 
that all of the things described by Dr. Austin were un- 
real, were not in the least degree material, and that 
they were only products of the imagination (error). 
Then she wondered if Dr. Austin had given her a 
complete outline of the subject, at least one that would 
enable her to sustain herself in discussion with her 
Christian Science friend. She recalled that her friend 
had already told her that doctors knew nothing of such 
derangements, and never would compass such know- 
ledge because they approached it from the physical side, 
when it was really a metaphysical subject. 

Suddenly addressing herself to the Doctor seriously, 
she observed: "Tell me, Uncle, the modus operandi 
of the workings of these revivals, how they so wonder- 
fully operate on people as they did on Hamilton. The 
achievements are so wonderful I would be compelled to 
think that they are Providential visitations, except for 
the fact that I cannot believe that any divine exper- 
ience would or could produce the disastrous mental 
and physical affections such as have proved so blighting 



120 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

to Hamilton. I know if it were God it would be 
perfect and wholly good." 

"You are right," responded Dr. Austin, "but that 
is not all. When you have heard the whole story, I 
think you will agree with me that, determined upon 
any dual basis of theology or morality, the good being 
of God and the evil that of Satan, these revivals 
are of the latter, and these evangelists are doing more 
harm than all the saloons of the country put together. 
In fact, they make business for the saloon and the 
brothel, as well as directly provide thousands of in- 
mates for our penal and insane institutions. They must 
know it as they provide for it. I regard an evan- 
gelist as the theological prototype of the medical 
charlatan, and I believe he is an even greater menace to 
the community. 

"Let us go on with the succession of events of the 
victim of conversion. To begin with, we must not 
overlook the influence of the evangelist. Emotional- 
ism is contagious, and the great emotionalism of man- 
ner and speech of a revivalist exhibits a strong emo- 
tional influence on his audience. If the evangelist is 
an adept at his calling, he designingly accentuates his 
visible emotionalism in every possible way. This mak- 
ing of him into an excessively emotional actor, also 
in turn reacts upon himself, duly increasing his own 
innate emotionalism. Witness the effect upon him: 
we observe one as though intoxicated or under the 
influence of absinthe or hashish. He too is suffering 

130 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

what his victims are suffering. He too is showing 
derangement, general enfeeblement, unbalance, eroti- 
cism, exhaustion, and decay. 

"Favorable conditions for conversion among the 
auditors, whether standing or sitting, are crowded con- 
ditions sufficient to produce vitiated air to breathe, and 
restriction of voluntary movement. Hard and uncom- 
fortable board bench seats appear to favor fixity of 
position. One of the most important requirements 
for conversion, as it is for other forms of hypnotism, 
is mental fixation and the production and control of 
dominant ideas. The initial requirement of this is the 
undivided attention of the congregation. This is a 
fundamental requisite. 

"Perhaps you have noticed when your mind was ac- 
tive on some particular line of thought, that music of 
great volume, activity, loudness, and especially with 
some rhythmic swing to it, dispels your previous 
thoughts. If the first piece did not succeed the second 
one did. That is the motive' for the great choirs of all 
successful modern revivals. This is so well recog- 
nized that all modern revival songs that have the right 
rhythm, swing, and emotional quality, are now copy- 
righted and are good earners. This is a relatively new 
feature of religious songs. All is commercialized now- 
adays. 

"Having cleared the mind of all previous thoughts, 
it is the business of the evangelist to attract and hold 
the exclusive attention of the audience. To attain this, 

131 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

the old time preacher, whose audience slept while he 
preached, does not suffice. He must hold the atten- 
tion whatever the cost. To do this, his auditors are 
entertained with acrobatic stunts, flamboyancy, pro- 
fanity, vulgarity, and mad ravings. Thus he fixes the 
eye and abates the breath of everyone within sight and 
hearing. Those beyond get the effect through the 
contagious extension of the psychology of the crowd. 
The goal is to do and say everything possible which is 
well calculated to produce motor reaction or muscular 
responsive activity, before an audience which must not 
and cannot respond or react in a motor way, within 
the bounds of religious decorum. The auditors must 
remain passive — negative — whatever the tension or 
stress, so long as their endurance permits. Then emo- 
tional, hysterical, or maniacal outburst must give vent 
to the distressing repression. 

"Coincident to this painful stress there is what might 
be termed a silent struggle between the impelling emo- 
tion and hypnotic influence to surrender and subordin- 
ation, on the one hand, and the natural forces of self- 
preservation, of the first of nature's laws, on the other. 
The intense struggle that so many revival converts 
experience just prior to the self-surrender to the per- 
suasive forces about them, are not unlike that ex- 
perienced by subjects of stage hypnotism, in which 
stage fright is the counterpart of the sense of em- 
barrassment and intimidation, which is designingly in- 
duced at revivals by the various schemes of singling 

132 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

out the converted from the non-converted, etc. It is 
represented to us by various religious writers that the 
struggle experienced by converts, admittedly a painful 
one, is a struggle for mastery between right and wrong. 
This, however, is mere twaddle." 



133 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter IX. 

MRS. WHEELER had proved an interested list- 
ener. She was being introduced into a side of 
religion and religious experience that was en- 
tirely new to her. At times she exhibited evidence of 
being shocked by the almost brutal bluntness with which 
the truth had been broken to her. She, however, 
knew her Uncle was absolutely reliable, a man who had 
ever been ready to admit it when a problem was not yet 
solved, and had always been one of those rugged 
apostles of sound common sense who are never pre- 
tentious or untruthful. If he could not be trusted for 
facts and the truth, no one could. Moreover, he had 
never before unfolded himself as he now had to her. 
However, convinced of the truth of all that Dr. 
Austin had told her, Mrs. Wheeler was not alto- 
gether satisfied. She was not yet fully informed of 
the mode of action, or what might be termed the me- 
chanics of conversion. She hesitated to phrase her 
thought, then observed: "Has man ever determined 
the manner of operation of revival processes on the 
human subject in a wholly material way?" Then she 
paused, as though she would withdraw the question. 
She was sensitive, and she did not desire to impose 
upon her Uncle's generosity in so freely imparting to 
her what it must needs have taken so much time and 
study for him to acquire. Dr. Austin surmised this, 
and generously assured her that nothing would give 



134 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

him greater pleasure than to instruct and serve her in 
any way within his power. 

The tears came to Mrs. Wheeler's eyes at this unan- 
ticipated expression of kindly consideration. How 
much it meant to him to tell her so much that so deeply 
concerned religious thought, she did not know. In 
his younger days Dr. Austin had been something of a 
Churchman. Later, as lie became engrossed and occu- 
pied by his profession, he ceased attendance at church 
services, but she had never heard him commit himself 
on the subject. If he had become alienated, he kept 
it to himself, as becomes professional and business men 
to do who seek patronage from all men, regardless of 
nation, race, color, or religion. 

Again taking up the thread of his discourse, Dr. 
Austin continued : "First, let us understand that re- 
vivalism is mass hypnotism, and the evangelist is a 
despotic hyp'notiser of multitudes. His audience is a 
crowd, subject to the sways and contagion of crowds 
generally, and his appeal is to that which ranks as the 
lowest of forms of human association. It is both 
atavistic and sterile. It is destructive, and never con- 
structive, in its works. The crowd, or the collective 
consciousness of it, possesses all the lower attributes, 
the emotions and primitive instincts, but none of the 
intellectual and higher attributes of the independent 
individual. Yet the individual member loses his iden- 
tity, and is swallowed up by the crowd. 

"Just make it known if you get tired of this," said 
Dr. Austin benevolently. 

135 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Go on, Uncle, don't be afraid," responded Mrs. 
Wheeler. 

Then he continued : 'Tor a number of years center- 
ing about 1890, modern hypnotism underwent advance- 
ment in great strides, especially in Europe, and it ap- 
peared that a most potent agent for the cure of many 
functional diseases and vicious habits was at the dis- 
position of the medical profession, but its dangers 
caused the American profession largely to leave it 
alone, and it remained for the rise of religious psy- 
chology to analyze and utilize its evangelical possibili- 
ties. Many volumes have been written on the sub- 
ject, most of which deprecate revivals in general as 
more harmful than beneficial to the public, yet others 
have venally urged such means of harvesting, even of 
children in adolescence. We observe at this time, dur- 
ing the stress of a great war, when the time is deemed 
ripe for wholesale conversion, that the bars are let 
down and evangelists are fairly killing themselves and 
maiming our populace in thousands, to make hay while 
the sun shines. Financial reports demonstrate its com- 
mercial success, and hospital and asylum reports fur- 
ther confirm it by the harm done. 

"Hypnotic influence upon a subject may be either a 
reinforcement of his will, such as is wrought by med- 
ical men for remedial benefit, accomplishing what the 
unaided will cannot, or it may be a breaking down of 
the will (surrender), such as we observe in all cases 
of submission where the subject becomes subordinated 

136 



The Conversion of Hamftton Wheeler 

and subservient to the hypnotist, as in the case of evan- 
gelical conversion. 

"Dr. Liebault, the founder of the Nancy School of 
French hypnotism, was scrupulously cautious never to 
break down the will of the subject under hypnotic 
treatment, and thus he avoided not only a possible 
mental confusion and struggle of resistance incident 
upon submitting to the suggestions, but also the later 
detrimental effects which are characteristic to sudden 
and violent religious conversions. 

"Now Helen, I wish to prepare you for the know- 
ledge, which, if I am to elucidate this subject to you 
properly, you must have, regardless of your other re- 
ligious views, which I have no disposition to disturb. 
Revival conversion is an introduction into — not the 
supernatural, but the sub-normal. That fact the world 
should know, not in reckless depreciation of any sane 
religion, but to save the world from such religion as 
this, if it be religion at all. Let us first do this duty to 
the world that it may be saved before it crosses the 
bridge which is being built in its path in the name of 
religion." 

Mrs. Wheeler looked aghast at the words of her 
Uncle. She had never heard him speak in such a man- 
ner before. He was quick to catch her expression of 
horror at his words, uttered in such grave seriousness, 
such stern earnestness. Then he smiled reassuringly, 
and observed : "Calm yourself, Helen. I do not pro- 
pose to cry this from the housetops as it should be done 

137 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

to save others now as it would have saved Hamilton, 
had it been done in advance of his sad experience." 

Mrs. Wheeler at once saw the force of his argument, 
and remarked : "Would to Heaven, Uncle, that I knew 
then what I do now, but I want to know more of it. 
It is giving me light I had never dreamed of before. 
Already I can see dawning a new mental horizon of 
boundless breadth and depth. I was shocked because 
from early childhood these very religious emotions 
and ecstacies have been pictured to me as those of the 
profoundest religious sense and experience, the very 
acme of proof of all things religious. It was 
a rude awakening to have its human, material 
status so abruptly uncovered. Yet I want the truth." 

"What I have previously told you about the preco- 
cious and excessive reaction of all low-density tissues of 
the body," continued the Doctor, "applies with equal 
force to the tissues of the organs of special sense, 
such as the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and surface tissues 
of the body, which are involved in the primary recep- 
tion of sensorial impressions. These tissues, which are 
what we term the nobler tissues, over-react function- 
ally, correspondingly as their tissues lose in density. 
They are more highly epithetliated and phosphorated 
tissues than the muscular. They perform functions 
of living tissues which are more highly specialized and 
delicate, but they are far less contractile than the 
others, and less subject to fatigue, and practically not 
at all to tetany. It is due to this fact that violent sense 

138 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

impressions, which tetanize other and more contractile 
tissues, which are affected secondarily through reflex 
and less direct communications, continue to be trans- 
mitted through these organs as subsequent sensorial 
impressions, when the normally associated functioning 
of the mutually inter reacting communicating tissues is 
in abeyance. 

''In hypnotism we have an illustration of how these 
reactions occur in all analogous phenomena. Through 
the medium of the eyes or ears, or both together, a state 
is produced which reduces the subject to the mental 
level of subconsciousness. The faculty of perception 
of sense impressions continues, but those perceptions 
are not reacted upon (elaborated) by the associated 
sum of past experiences of the individual. The tissues 
involved in past sensory reactions fail of that repetition 
of reaction which occurs in the waking state, and thus 
a low grade of partial consciousness, which we term 
subconsciousness, takes place, with consequent absence 
of the bearing upon new sense impressions, and of the 
full concert of representations of past experience of 
the individual, which would constitute full conscious- 
ness. If a suggestion is made that a certain thing is a 
fact, or the subject is told to do something, no mental 
process deliberating the truth or fallacy of the state- 
ment, or any debating considerations of wisdom of the 
suggested act, of the sequence of it, etc., are enter- 
tained. The statement and the command are accepted 
without question, and acted upon without the least pro- 

139 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

cess of weighing them in the light of the individual's 
past experience. 

"We find that the peculiar mental status of hyperes- 
thetic neurotics, highly disciplined soldiers, subjects of 
stage hypnotism, whose wills have been broken down 
for the edification of amusement audiences, victims of 
sudden and violent conversions, and persons in general 
who are innately feeble-minded or who have been brow- 
beaten into submission and subordinated to other minds, 
who are characterized as followers of leaders and of 
crowds and never do their own thinking, are corre- 
spondingly credulous, analogous to the hypnotised sub- 
ject. 

"The individual unit of crowds, who is in large de- 
gree compelled to subordinate individuality to the 
composite collective consciousness of the whole, be- 
comes a part of the whole in his reaction, and at the 
expense of individuality. The hyperesthetic, by virtue 
of his super-impressionability, is correspondingly super- 
suggestible and thus super-credulous. Emotional tetan- 
us effaces the associations of past experience repre- 
sentation. 

"A somewhat advanced stage of hypnotism embraces 
a state of muscular rigidity, which in turn involves an 
absence or abeyance of volition. An arm or leg may be 
placed in any fixed position, and it will continue as 
placed against considerable effort exerted upon it by 
another person. An entire body may be thus made so 
rigid that it will support an extraordinary weight in 

140 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

the capacity of a bridge from head to heel. The spinal 
muscles become so strongly contracted that the body 
arches backwards (oposthotinus). These rigid states 
are known as catalepsy, and all these allied phases are 
cataleptic in type. 

"The tetanies of the tissues involved in the subcon- 
scious states, that I have just referred to, are certainly 
very closely allied to those of catalepsy. We have ob- 
served that hypnotism and these other states are other- 
wise practically the same, perhaps varying mostly in 
degree as to factors of causation, and as to physical and 
mental manifestation. The subsconscious ego is the 
credulous and plastic one, as is the subwaking hyp- 
notic subject. The irresistible impulse in both is un- 
tempered or controlled by reason. Blindness to se- 
quence is the natural concomitant, and criminality and 
unethical conduct is a natural sequel. It is mental dis- 
association in all its forms. Double consciousness and 
personalities, and the functional disease amnesia are 
among the typical manifestations. 

"As we experience a separation of the usual repre- 
sentation of past experiences from current sense im- 
pressions, which latter are thus deprived of their nor- 
mal association, we exhibit a subconscious character on 
one occasion and a fully conscious one on another. If 
the different conscious levels are quite diverse and 
the subjects remain in one or another for hours or 
days at a time, two different personalities are recog- 
nized, such as are illustrated in Stevenson's story of 
'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde/ 

141 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"An unfortunate status of our mentality is that 
no amount of reason and understanding during the full 
conscious periods can markedly influence the subcon- 
scious ones which may precede or follow them. The 
latter remain practically undisturbed. A convert may 
obtain ever so many satisfactory proofs that the Bible 
is simply a collection of a few books selected from 
hundreds that had previously passed current with equal 
authority and veneration, until the fourth century, and 
originally made by a group of unscrupulous prelates 
of the Roman Church, yet in spite of himself, if he was 
brought up to believe it the infallible word of God, he 
experiences an irrepressible awe, and often an emotional 
veneration in handling it, that is remarkable. 

"The Arabs and Hindus experience such an emotion 
of inhibitory awe and reverence in contemplating the 
deity that they can with difficulty pronounce the holy 
name. Complete inhibition is riot infrequent. The 
overwhelming sense of veneration is so indelibly im- 
pressed on the inaccessible subsconsciousness that no 
amount of information or reason of the full con- 
scious ego can dispel it. It exhibits itself only when 
under emotional sway, never in operations of the rea- 
son, and only shows itself at the surface in the hypnotic 
state, insanity, in crowd psychology, and other states 
wherein the reason is suppressed, and consciousness 
is thus correspondingly incomplete. 

"The narrowing of the mental function, so much 
observed as a result of factors of sensorial shock 



142 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

and tetany, is undoubtedly due to tetanic paralysis of 
some constituent tissues involved in the collective men- 
tal function. Tissues once tetanized are predis- 
posed to subsequent tetanies. ' Thus an individual once 
terrorized is prone to future terrors, once shocked is 
more prone to subsequent shocks, and once rendered 
erotic by religious excitement, the subject is prone 
to future sexual excitations and to licentiousness. All 
emotional excitements, and their subsequent and con- 
sequential physical exhaustions, produce a predilection 
to alcoholic indulgence. Especially in Kentucky has it 
been notable. 

"Whether one interprets the major tetany as taking 
place in the inner end plate tissues of the sensory nerves 
or sensorium, the higher centers, or the muscles of 
motor nerve distribution, the effect is the same, a te- 
tanic paralysis. A sense of fixation or tensional rig- 
idity pervades more or less of the whole muscular or- 
ganism. The instigation to activity is adduced in as- 
tounding and repeated blows, yet destitute of any motor 
outlet. It is this tetany, this rigidity and exhibited cat- 
aleptic paralysis of the superficial muscular system, 
that constitutes the so-called motor inhibition which is 
such an essential requirement of hypnotic trance pro- 
duction, as well as hypnotic conversion. 

"Right here we come to the consideration of what 
and where the higher mental tissues are. That they lie 
beyond the sensorium, all will concur, but are they 
exclusively in the brain? That is a question. Person- 

143 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ally, I believe not. That the higher mental areas are 
concerned with memory must be the case, for we weigh 
all current perceptions with the accrued material of our 
past experience — our collective experience. The more 
completely the individual's collective experience is 
brought to bear for any case of discernment, discrim- 
ination, etc., the riper is the judgment which is de- 
veloped. 

"All memories being lesser potential repetitions of 
original reactions incident to past sense impressions, 
and the motor organs involved in the motor reactions, 
we have good reason to believe that these same body 
constituents collectively constitute -the areas of the 
repetitions involved in what we call memory. That 
being the case, the collective tissues of the entire body 
must be reckoned as the composite organ of mind. 

"A memory of a past occurrence which involved a 
painful tissue reaction of the tip of a finger, for ex- 
ample, would also involve a repetition or a secondary 
reaction of the same tissues, as well as its original 
contemporary sense impressions, and the associated 
past experiences of the original reaction covering its 
composite mental picture." 

"I think I understand/' interjected Mrs. Wheeler. 
"Now let me see if I can state it correctly : The full 
or higher consciousness requires a full representation 
of associated ideas or memories of past events to bear 
upon and elaborate any current event which is made 
known to us through one or more sense impressions, 

144 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

in order to make possible a full composite concept of 
the current event. And to the extent that the bearing 
of .the past experiences are lacking, the full comprehen- 
sion and deliberated action upon it, will be correspond- 
ingly, lacking." 

"Very good,"commented Dr. Austin. "Now tell me 
the physical activities underlying it all." 

"Attention then," said Mrs. Wheeler. "Your theory 
is that the whole body is subject to reaction to impres- 
sions through the special senses, and to complete a full 
complement of representations of past experiences the 
reactions of all tissues involved in all original reactions 
associating with the current ones, must be brought to 
bear upon in elaboration of the current one." 

"Bravo, Bravo," shouted Dr.Austin. "Now the path- 
ology?" 

Mrs. Wheeler continued: "You believe that when 
the muscles and tissues generally are even temporarily 
paralyzed, as by a tetany, a spasm, or an emotion, shall 
I say?" 

"Go on," said Dr. Austin. 

"The possible representation of the tissues involved 
in the field of association fails to respond or come into 
the composite current consciousness, which is thus left 
incomplete, and subsconscious to that degree." 

"Better than I could have stated it myself," com- 
mented the Doctor. "However, there is just one thing, 
I think, that you have omitted. Can you now make 

145 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

a practical application of it ? Can you think of a typical 
clinical case?" 

"I should think a crowd might be one," suggested 
Mrs. Wheeler, "especially if jammed as I have been 
at times, when I was transfixed and could not move." 

"That is one type," commented the Doctor, "what 
else?" 

"The same conditions in a public hall, even though 
seated. That is all I can think of at present," observed 
Mrs. Wheeler. 

"How about words and acts which will shock and 
paralyze with fear, which will transfix with tetanic 
rigor, produce spasmodic or cataleptic muscular con- 
tractions, or convulse with emotion?" 

"Of course," apologetically replied Mrs. Wheeler. 

"Now," said Dr. Austin, "if you will run it over in 
your mind, you will find that these are the very cases 
which exhibit the undeliberated acts of the subscon- 
scious. There is, however, one more factor that has 
so far escaped us. In the rash acts of emotionalism 
we have illustrations of premature and excessive reac- 
tions to all sensorial impressions. Not only does an in- 
dividual cringe, jerk, or jump, at every abrupt noise 
showing excessive recoils, but his reactions become 
so reflex in character, and they occur so precociously 
that they are practically minus the usual associations 
with past experience memories. This type of indi- 
vidual generally acts first and thinks afterwards — he 
repents at leisure. 
146 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"As a matter of fact, hyperesthetics and hysterics 
in general are rash actors. The member unit of a 
crowd acts rashly while in the crowd. The revival 
victim also acts as irrationally as he does emotionally, 
not with deliberation. One emotional impetus super- 
imposed upon another attains an accrued stimulus 
which eventually finds explosive release, and that re- 
lease is the motor activity which animates the victim 
to go to the rostrum, and is termed conversion. Out- 
side of religion, and often inside, it activates to crime 
and vice. Not infrequently crime or vice, or both, di- 
rectly follow from the revival stimulus. In practically 
all cases, it is a rash act born of passion and unmoder- 
ated by adequate, if any, deliberation. It comes too 
late to prevent the rash act." 

The Doctor looked at his watch, and observing that 
he had permitted absorption in his subject to make him 
oblivious to the lapse of time, and that he had con- 
siderably overstayed the time allotted to this call, rose 
from his chair, took his niece by the hand in a more 
than usually tender farewell, and took his departure. 



147 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter X. 

ON Mrs. Wheeler's invitation, Dr. Austin man- 
aged his affairs so as to get around in time 
to dine with her and Hamilton at seven o'clock, 
thus permitting of a longer evening together. 

At the conclusion of dinner, and immediately after 
retiring to the living-room, Dr. Austin took up the 
thread of his discourse and Mrs. Wheeler reassumed 
the role of the interested auditor. 

"Anything that disposes to mental morbidity," re- 
sumed Dr. Austin, "correspondingly predisposes to re- 
ligion. The causative factors of insanity and of mental 
unbalance, in general foster religious fervor. 

"In ancient times, war, famine, and pestilence, were 
the sheet anchor of priestdom, for they all fostered re- 
ligion and superstitition quite as much as religion fos- 
tered wars, and made the public gullible and yielding 
to priestly cunning. Most wars of history have been, 
directly or indirectly, religious wars. 

"In the present great war in Europe, the rigors of 
life in the trenches, from exhaustion of the over- 
wrought, resulting in psychoses and neuroses, monot- 
onous and deficient food, off-duty periods of contem- 
plation of more or less terror and resignation to im- 
pending death ; and in those left at home, with monot- 
onous diet and insufficient nutrition, worries and anx- 
ieties in anticipation of individual and national danger, 



148 






The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

or grief over personal losses, reduce the mind to a 
condition in which it is prone to give way to religious 
emotion. 

"The tetany of grief from all causes, generally finds 
expression in emotion. In fact, emotion is the natural 
outlet for the tetany of pent up grief, and emotional 
grief easily shades into emotional religion. Emotion, 
from all causes, is so identical in its general characters, 
especially the motor one, that one cause may prepare 
the way for the exhibition of the characteristics of an- 
other. Thus it is that the emotion of grief, and other 
depressing emotions, leads to that of religion. 

"The emotions of pathos, of sympathy, of sorrow, 
of music, of poetry, of eroticism, and of religion, are 
so similar that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that 
they are, as emotions, all in one and one in all. The 
successful evangelist consciously and designingly in- 
cludes the majority of them in his propaganda, and his 
victims unconsciously and submissively add the remain- 
ing ones when they attain to conversion. 

"The common expression of experiencing or feeling 
religion, is simply a characterization of the sense of 
emotion which is experienced in conversion, and which 
is afterwards reproduced in varying degrees upon the 
occasions of divers association of ideas, which are in- 
stigated by impressions which revive the original emo- 
tion under the law of repetition. 

"The very process of a religious system which origin- 
ally produces a sufficiently profound and violent emo- 

149 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

tion to attain conversion, together with the after pro- 
gram process of revivals, carried to a sufficient degree 
to dominate the lives of its victims, are decidedly patho- 
genic, and the clinical status is a morbid one. The 
psychologic status is one of derangement, and it is evi- 
dently produced as an aberration by artifice, and for 
a definite purpose. 

"All morbid factors of daily life are predisposing 
causes, and prepare the victim for the superimposed 
acting causes which our Evangelists provide. Thus 
the morbidity of religious emotion is proved in its addi- 
tion to the sum of pathological effects produced by 
known factors of disease. 

"It is the dominant fugitive ego of the subconscious 
state that expresses itself as the delinquent and irra- 
tional. It is the type of the extreme credulousness 
produced by religious conversion, and that of the hyp- 
notic automaton of suggestion. 

"The individual soldier of the perfect military ma- 
chines of Germany and Turkey has shown himself a 
subconscious automaton in whom the reactionaries of 
the despotic autocratic government have suppressed the 
higher consciousness, abolishing the higher strata, and 
leaving only the subconscious ego disciplined to abject 
obedience and extreme credulity. 

"In the subconscious, subwaking hypnotic subject, we 

observe all of the characteristics of the subwaking self, 

which in the words of Dr. Boris Sidis is 'devoid of all 

morality ; it will steal without the least scruple ; it will 

150 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

poison; it will stab; it will assassinate its best friends 
without the least scruple. When completely cut off 
from the waking person it is precluded from con- 
science.' Thus does the German soldier of war differ 
from the interested soldier of the Allies, and even 
from the German citizen of peace. He is the automaton 
of the subconscious state, and the counterpart of the 
subwaking state of hypnotism. The equally discip- 
lined and obedient slave of ecclesiastical browbeating, 
terrorization, and close organization and control, only, 
can show the same record. 

"If you will pardon the digression, I think the Ger- 
man people are most interesting subjects of psycho- 
logical analysis. I think you will agree with me that 
the German people of our country, as we know them, 
are not naturally quarrelsome, unscrupulous, or unlaw- 
abiding. In fact, we know that Germany is the most 
law-bound country in the world, the old Tzar-ridden 
autocratic Russia not excepted. 

"It is true that acts of the Imperial German Gov- 
ernment, the officials of which are composed largely 
of groups of hereditary princes and noblemen, as 'a 
class, are utterly devoid of scruple, honor, morality, or 
humanity, but this has been the case in more or less 
degree in other countries where such elements have 
had sufficient power, as history shows. 

"The conversion of the law-abiding German citizen 
into the perfectly disciplined soldier, the perfect auto- 
maton, shorn of all independent activity and individu- 
al 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ality, and collectively into a perfect military machine, 
was a process that repressed the individual reason, 
volition, and consciousness, to subconscious levels. Thus 
deprived of his personal reason and individual volition, 
he has become the most barbarous, cruel, and criminal 
animal of modern or ancient times. Rape, rapine, 
murder of old men, women, and children, wholesale 
destruction of all human habitations by fire and explo- 
sive, and of the world's food supply, including that 
upon which Germany must herself eventually draw 
or starve, has occupied them for nearly three years. 
Not only in those things I have named, but for lewd- 
ness and filthiness of acts, he has shown himself in- 
ferior to the lowest brutes. 

"His equal has been seen only in the lust, cruelty, 
unfeeling brutality, and merciless atrocities of the 
fanatical Turks and some disciplined and iron oath- 
bound secret orders and other zealots of our own Chris- 
tian Church, which engineered the Inquisition, Cru- 
sades, witch burnings, and other inhuman tortures and 
massacres. In other words, horrible to relate, fanatical 
religion alone has equaled the acts of this most unprin- 
cipled and atrocious autocracy of official degenerates. 
Nothing has surpassed religion in reducing man to that 
subsconscious state which renders him lower than 
brutes, except perchance the present political appro- 
priation of the same process by the Central Powers. 
Nothing has so corrupted American politics as that 
emotionalism which was made possible by religious 
instigation in this, the country of the revival plague. 
152 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Pardon me if I have bored you with an exuberance 
on this subject, but I can't give it thought at all with- 
out following it too deeply, in its many ramifications, 
to some conclusion. I am not only interested, but I 
regard it as one of the most important problems before 
our people today, not excepting the war. As you know, 
I have given it much thought in the past. I have many 
times felt strongly that the medical profession as a 
whole should take it up and express itself in no uncer- 
tain terms, yet to accomplish that, some few physicians 
would have to shoulder the bulk of the burden of it, 
and they would personally have to bear the brunt of 
the savage attack that would be sure to follow. 

"For general reasons explained to you, showing 
causes for personal unscrupulousness of conduct, com- 
bined with a feeling of security in their official ca- 
pacity, certain government officials are most unscru- 
pulous and heartless in their propagation of national 
designs, and criminal in the exercise of legislative and 
executive authority. It has been truly said that govern- 
ments are less ethical and less moral than individuals. 
We have ample illustration of that in the operations of 
the German Government leading up to and during the 
present war. Such cold calculations of wholesale mur- 
der, robbery, and indeed of any crime that it might 
be found of utility to commit in connection with the 
general plan, if contemplated by a single individual 
independently and carried out on a single victim, out- 
side of the Government program, would be punished, 
even by that Government, as a capital offense. 

153 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Vandalism in Germany is unknown, everything is 
'verboten;' there is no liberty, much less license. Yet 
as a soldier in neighboring countries, the German is 
one of the worst vandals the world ever knew. 

"Here in America official public trusts are often 
enough corrupt, and official dishonesty and unscru- 
pulousness are not uncommon, whereas in Germany, 
where the populace was long overburdened with 
taxes in preparation for this great war, there has been 
little official dishonesty. It was not through greater 
individual honesty, but because the Central Govern- 
ment conserved and eventually absorbed the funds. 

"The fact is that German officials, who are so 
largely of princely, ducal, and feudal baron families 
of long standing aristocracy, have lived in the lap of 
luxury, are so sedentary of habit, overfed, and over- 
beveraged with wines and beer, and have so lowered 
their tissue density that we have in them, as in their 
Russian contemporaries, as a class, the most typical ex- 
ample in the world of the sthenic hyperesthetic, which 
I regard as most of all mankind inclined to premeditat- 
ed and unfeeling criminality. 

"The policy of some of the European Monarchies, 
that of permitting brutal treatment and a menial en- 
slavement of new recruits to the armies, in which the 
men are kicked about and treated like dogs by their 
officers, is probably encouraged with a view of com- 
pletely breaking down individualism and subordinat- 
ing the will of the common soldier to the complete con- 

154 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

trol of the officer. The end result of all this is the 
imposition upon the subconscious ego of a salutory fear 
of the officers, which will at all times control the sol- 
dier's fully conscious acts. The brutalities observed 
increase, as a rule, where the soldiers themselves are 
most rough and barbarous. Thus Turkey leads, with 
the Balkan states a close second. 

"In contrast to the typical Oriental, with his blunted 
sensibilities, stands the Oriental Gypsy, an individual 
of super-sensitiveness, not unlike the typical Oriental 
in treachery, unscrupulousness, lying, cheating, and su- 
preme selfishness, yet otherwise like the Occidental 
hyperesthetic, they are high strung and are possessed 
of a 'fine ear and talent for music. 

"It should not, however, be overlooked, as I have 
said, that the reduction of these men to subconscious 
automatons alone renders them naturally barbarous and 
cruel, which may account for those attributes in large 
measure, yet we know that all these Orientals are to no 
small degree oblivious to suffering, by virtue of their 
own blunted sensibilities. Their religious zeal and 
fanaticism also plays a part in the atrocities they com- 
mit. Thus, both natural and acquired attributes are 
involved. 

"Most unfortunately, for a true or accurate concept 
of the psychology of ethics and morality, we are almost 
daily subjected to reading and hearing allusions to and 
characterizations of instigations of emotional manifes- 
tations as moral and spiritual forces and quickenings, 

155 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

and allied expressions which conceal the real nature 
of what are far from being expressions of spiritual 
forces or quickenings to ethical or moral betterment. 
To deceive people into wrong applications of terms to 
such commonplace feelings, is often to lead them into 
stamping what is evil as good. It also deceives the 
individual into making misinterpretations of the emo- 
tional expressions of others, as well as his own, and 
deifying and throwing a halo about that which is a 
truly animal functional activity, which is often ab- 
normal, and is even rendered abnormal by such falsifi- 
cations of natural phenomena. 

"A mind, the separate special sense impressions of 
which have been confused and jumbled into chaotic con- 
glomerations of undifferentiated vagaries and obscuri- 
ties, should be expected to so functionate and produce 
an end-product which is also lacking in the faculties of 
differentiation, discernment, and discrimination. 

"Differentiation in concept depends upon a corre- 
spondingly clear differentiation in perception. Abolish 
one and you abolish the other. When the mental facul- 
ties of differentiation are in abeyance, those of dis- 
cernment, of discrimination, of decision, and hence of 
independent judgment, are equally in abeyance. 
Weaken one, and you weaken all those which are based 
on it. 

"A mind lacking powers of differentiation, discern- 
ment, and discrimination, is lacking the foremost and 
most important elements of human intellectual require- 
156 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ment. The possessor of such a mind is unfit for any- 
thing except to labor for someone else on periodic sti- 
pends. He may be managed by a capable wife, but per- 
sonally he is without individual capacity. Many such 
persons are continually at the mercy of designing 
sharks, and the prey of artful deceivers. The religious 
side is always the weakest. It is always the point of 
vulnerability. 

"It is only a brief series of little steps that leads 
from the ecstatic confusion of senses which is de- 
veloped at the height of a revival-induced delirium, to 
one in which a morbid vividness of the evangelist's 
pictures find entrance to the sensorium, not only as 
auditory, but also as morbid visual impressions. The 
visual ones are the abnormal ones because they occur 
as visual illusions and appear real, however produced 
by no ocular impressions. They constitute sense de- 
ceptions, and foster hallucinations. 

"Whatever foils or defeats distinctive perception 
fosters confusion of thought, and it in turn is produc- 
tive of loss of definition and direction. Thus mental 
confusion may range all the way from vague and ob- 
scure ideation to complete chaotic confluence. Panicky 
and frustrated states are often temporarily devoid of 
all voluntary control, so much so that their victims are 
helpless in the face of danger. Even the first law of 
nature (self preservation) is in abeyance. Persons so 
afflicted are said to lose their heads. Their intellectual 
control of voluntary acts, and even volition per se, are 

157 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

in temporary abeyance. The inhibition is here mean- 
ingless unless we understand how it acts. The laws 
that there can be no volition without some degree of dis- 
crimination and that voluntary control of motor acts 
occurs in direct ratio to the power of discrimination 
exercised, must be taken into account. The purpose 
and goal of voluntary action is fundamentally discrim- 
inative in nature. Thus Volition' lacking discrimina- 
tion, equally lacks purpose, direction, and definition. 
Such, therefore, is incoherent and non-cognitive." 

"Uncle, dear," Mrs. Wheeler observed, "I do not 
wish to impose upon you, but there is yet another 
point that has not been explained, that which many 
church people highly regard as indicative of inception 
of the divine Spirit. In the process of conversion, 
when the period of struggle in the subject ends, there 
succeeds a sense of pleasure, of comfort, and delight, 
which is quite generally interpreted as due to a real 
attainment of grace and the Holy Spirit. Can that also 
be of animal origin?" 

Dr. Austin smiled knowingly, and then proceeded to 
explain to her that: "In all cases of the tetany or 
spasmodic rigid contracture of the superficial tissues 
of the body, which are incident to the expression of 
profound fear and allied emotions, the blood content 
of the network of capillary vessels ramifying through 
the superficial tissues is ejected, and these tissues ex- 
hibit a local anaemia, and as a consequence, an as- 
phyxia. Thus the skin is white and cold. 

158 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Unable now to obtain oxygen without the requisite 
blood supply, the poverty or absence of which is thus 
responsible for a resulting dilation of the capillaries 
which follows, the way is opened for a return rush of 
blood into the now dilated vessels, which entails a 
state of flushing or blushing, as it is called. This is 
accompanied by a sense of well being, buoyancy, opti- 
mism, and happiness. This is the state that is repre- 
sented to those who have passed through its phases in 
the course of a revival conversion, as a sense of feeling 
of the Holy Ghost, of the nearness of God, of possess- 
ing Jesus, etc. It is that which many of the clergy 
are pleased to call a genuine experience of religion. 

"It appears surprising that notwithstanding that this 
same serial experience or sensation is experienced 
apart from religion by everyone, many times during 
a lifetime, many continue to put on it the dogmatic in- 
terpretation whenever it occurs in a religious connec- 
tion. 

"There is, therefore, a fundamental and essential 
emotional feeling which may be regarded as the re- 
ligious sense or religious experience, which the con- 
verted of all religions experience. When experienced 
by Christians, it is interpreted as experiencing or know- 
ing Christ Jesus. The Evangelist Edward Payson 
Hammond used to ask his auditors whether they knew 
about God or actually knew him. The actual knowl- 
edge is this emotion sense, and is a fixed delusion. 

"The Mohammedans interpret the same sense or 

159 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

feeling experienced in their religious emotions as of 
Mohammed, the Buddhists interpret it as of Buddha, 
the Brahmas interpert theirs as of Brahma, etc., 
according to their religious education. The devotee of 
one religion never experiences the emotional sense or 
knowledge of any God, prophet, or Christ Savior other 
than the one his religion provides for. 

"The Christian revival conversion experience, cul- 
minating in what is termed finding Jesus, and in an 
emotional sensorial experience of actual knowledge of 
Jesus or any other form of deity or prophet of celes- 
tial spheres, must be regarded in all cases as one form 
or another of delusion, illusion, or hallucination, and 
therefore as morbid and injurious to more or less de- 
gree. 

"The prolonged periods of inability to attain the 
emotional hallucination described by evangelists as ex- 
perienced by many revival victims, must be regarded 
from the medical viewpoint as the experience of more 
normal persons, who less easily experience false sense 
impressions when set adrift under hypnotic suggestion 
to that goal. When they finally attain to it, we find 
it usually comes with ultimate local or general exhaus- 
tion. Prior to the onset of the exhaustion, in view of 
hesitancy to adopt a delusion, the confusion and per- 
plexity fail of relief. 

"When reason is in abeyance, it is truly surprising 
what people will accept unquestioned as facts that are 
too sacred even to reason about. Every little while 

160 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

someone, in complete ignorance of the accrued data on 
the subject, will present a so-called theory of some vital 
biological or physical process, which is generally di- 
ametrically incompatible with such data or facts already 
known. These theories, of course, promptly perish 
from inanition, under the law of the elimination of the 
unfit. That is the history of modern science in con- 
trast to religion which gives us a ficticious account of 
creation. 

"A few centuries ago when the world was minus the 
collection of data we now possess, any such theories 
might have been accepted as fact. If, when they were 
set forth, they were given out as God's word and even- 
tually included in some ordained holy book, they would 
have been accepted as infallible fact. 

"We now accept as God's word an eclectic composite 
relic of antiquity that was accepted in the ignorance of 
the ancients as truth, but which would not be so ac- 
cepted today if just launched. The acceptance and con- 
secration of the Bible by the ignorant illiterate ancients 
is the only thing that makes it acceptable today. There 
is now a mental halo surrounding it which the majority 
fear to question. Mental subordination is the conse- 
quence. 

"Perhaps what goes farther than anything else in 
gaining public tolerance of revivals, is the public promi- 
nence given to evangelists as great agents of moral 
uplift. The evangelist represents Satan as the prince 



161 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

of sin and the instigator of all the sin in the world, 
in opposition to the church, and he (the revivalist) is 
the instrument of eradication of all this sin which he 
enumerates as including profanity, prostitution, danc- 
ing, alcoholic indulgence, tobacco and drug addiction, 
etc. 

"As we have seen, evangelism and its emotional con- 
version do not, as implied, tend to improve, but rather 
to lower general morality. In proof of this, not only 
present day observation, but the history of religion in 
general, attests. The earliest profanity consisted of 
the oaths and ejaculations of the priests and devotees. 
The earliest prostitution was the sacred prostitution of 
temple worship. The earliest licentiousness was relig- 
ious, some of the earlier religions were phallic, the 
earliest homo-sexual vices were committed by monastic 
devotees. The earliest alcoholic beverages were made 
and drunk with sacred ceremony, and later wine be- 
came consecrated as the token of the blood of the 
Savior. Alcohol has ever been a great agent for pro- 
ducing spiritual intoxication and as an instigator of 
holy ecstacies, inspirations, and visions of priests and 
other holy men. 

"The earliest recorded falsehoods were uttered and 
written for the establishment of religion, the earliest 
forgeries of history were committed in substantiation of 
religion. The earliest fraudulent deceptions of man- 
kind, of historical record, were those of Theurgy, 
Thaumaturgy, and Magic for the establishment and 

162 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

sustinence of religion. The Christian was no excep- 
tion to the rule. 

"As the great reader I know you to be, I know you 
are already familiar with these things. I do not men- 
tion them as necessarily indicative of a similar state 
of the priesthood or ministry in our day, but inasmuch 
as the greater stress of sanctity is put upon antiquity 
by the church itself, perhaps I would not be overstep- 
ping in citing it as illustrative of some of the earlier 
and less artificial expressions of religion. 

"One of the things so savagely denounced and pro- 
scribed by modern revivalists, dancing, is historically 
the very acme of religious expression. Condemning it 
is like condemning obscenity when the Bible is over- 
flowing with it, which only for being the canonized 
text-book of Christianity, would be forbidden by the 
very laws enacted by Christian bodies for the suppres- 
sion of obscene literature in general, and which is in 
fact no more obscene, but simply disconnected with re- 
ligion, which isolates it from and disidentifies it with 
religious emotion. 

"Practically all dancing among primitive peoples and 
ancient civilizations was essentially religious, and most 
dances had their origin in forms of religious worship. 
Ritual dancing has been an accessory to religious rites 
from time immemorial, and the time was when there 
was no ritual without the dance. From the dancing 
priestesses of the sacred temples of antiquity, down 
to the dancing before the Lord of Old Testament days, 

163 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

to the dancing of the choral festival of the Essenes, 
to the dances of the Agapae, to the Christmas carols 
which were originally dances, to the dances of the 
Easter festivals, to the Christian ritual dances of 
France, which were joined in by priests and clergy, to 
the dances of the Shakers of our own day, all are 
religious, and expressions of religious ecstasy, exulta- 
tion, and intoxication, as the funeral dances were of 
the opposite emotion. 

"The dancing Dervishes of the Far East, as well 
as the participants of the dancing manias of the Middle 
Ages, were examples of religious ecstatic-intoxicated 
dancers, who manifested not only an ecstasy, but a 
spree, a debauch. These have ever been grossly re- 
ligious. Ecstatic dancing, with its strong emotions 
and religious exultations, and its pleasant glow of ex- 
citement, predisposes at once to both the religious and 
sexual emotions. 

"The ecstatic dancing of the early Christians, many 
of which occurred in the churches and were led by the 
prelates and priests, the wedding, funeral, and grave- 
yard dances, were all religious, yet many of them 
were more licentious than the Apache dances of Paris. 
The most religious dances of history were the most 
licentious. Those of the sacred prostitutes of the 
temples, and the eventually suppressed dances of the 
early Christian Agapae, were examples. 

"The undulatory motion generated by feeling in its 
physical discharges, finds in trained volitional danc- 

164 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ing a counterpart in its rhythm and measured step. 
Especially is this true of religious ritual dances which 
were danced to hymn music. The ecstasy developed in 
this is well illustrated by the Shakers, who carried it to 
the point of producing well marked intoxication akin 
to that of alcoholism in all stages. The excessive danc- 
ing of the Dervish and medieval dancers exhibit high- 
est degrees of breathlessness and delirious intoxication, 
and have ever been interpreted in the highest degree 
as of spiritual experience. How different is it all from 
the stately minuet ! 

"There is an old adage that people who live in glass 
houses should not throw stones, yet is it not paradox- 
ical enough that these self-appointed censors should 
denounce all dancing of cultured Society in behalf of 
religion? Do they not also equally denounce religious 
superstructures which are built upon the very foun- 
dations of which they approve? 

"Christians who are appalled at the nonsensical and 
unreasonable tenets of Christian Science, must be re- 
minded that Christian Science propaganda would not 
succeed were it not for the underlying tenets of Chris- 
tianity, which demand faith acceptance regardless of 
being diametrically opposed to science, history, and 
reason. 

"He who endorses and fosters one thing which de- 
mands and depends upon the surrender of reason, 
should not balk at that which is outside the pale of 
what he thus endorses, even when it is contrary to 

165 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

scientific and general knowledge and beyond all reason, 
so long as he endorses that upon which it rests. Cer- 
tainly Christian Science is only a superstructure of the 
Christian religion, and is no more mythical or mystical. 
Both embody Neo-Platonism. What it most lacks is 
the scientific element." 

After a thoughtful pause, Mrs. Wheeler remarked: 
"Uncle, I have been impressed that all of your interpre- 
tations of the actions of revival processes thus far are 
not only physical, but that the essential effects of them 
are also in the final analysis entirely physical in their 
nature. It looks plausible enough as far as I am able 
to judge, but I can't yet see how revival songs have 
any more of a physical effect than any other." 

"That is very simple/ interjected Dr. Austin. "Pro- 
bably the most vital function of animal life is breath- 
ing. You have perhaps heard the saying that we can go 
weeks without food, days without water, but only sec- 
onds without air. Whatever seriously disturbs breath- 
ing is the gravest of menaces to our equilibrium and 
consciousness, even life. 

"You undoubtedly have read how the rolling and 
pitching of ships in rough and choppy seas are produc- 
tive of faintness, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting, so- 
called sea sickness? That is largely due to disturb- 
ances of the rhythm of breathing. Revival hymns are 
quite typical as to rhythm, and are sung with a pro- 
nounced rhythm and swing, as well as dynamic force 
and momentum. The breathing of anyone singing them 
166 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

must be adapted to the prevailing rhythm of the music, 
and thus he is at the disposal of the artful choir mas- 
ter. Therefore we observe disturbances of breath- 
ing as the singing is led/now fast, now slow, at high 
rapidity, then suddenly coming to abrupt slowness, 
and long sustained notes. 

"Not infrequently the singers of a great chorus, who, 
after letting out the voice freely in singing with con- 
siderable momentum the measured rhythm of a typical 
revival hymn, are brought by the choir master to a 
rather abrupt slow-down and then held to long sus- 
tained notes, involving a sudden change from short 
and rapid, to prolonged and slowed measures, often 
feel at that point a pronounced sense of what they des- 
ignate as goneness in the stomach. Associated with this, 
especially on repetition, faintness and even nausea occa- 
sionally supervene. 

"When one observes these crafty choir masters 
standing facing their great choirs, leading them with 
both arms in the air in full motion, craftily fluctuating 
the time and rhythm at will ; when one sees the hypnotic 
effect, combined with the trafficking with their breath- 
ing just mentioned, he is not surprised that so many 
of the choir are so early and often converted. 

"When one considers the conspicuous position occu- 
pied by the choir, and recalls the contagion tendencies 
of crowd psychology, he is not surprised that the whole 
program works out as it does, and that the members 
of the choir who are first converted, thanks to the 

167 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

breathing disturbances, a touch or more of stage- 
fright, and other factors to which they are subjected, 
set the example of 'hitting the trail' in full view of 
the audience, and that the auditors follow their example 
to the extent that they do. 

"It must not, however, be overlooked that the 
rhythm of revival music verse carries with it uncoordin- 
ated imagery, which if prosaically uttered, subject to 
analytical reasoning, would not be admissible by per- 
sons of mediocre intelligence. Congregations, however, 
are crowds, and always as such, act in concert, and 
otherwise than by reason. Therefore in this respect 
they would be expected to act without any sort of de- 
liberation. The imagery outlined in hymns becomes sub- 
consciously impressed upon mind and memory, not as 
logical statement of fact, and subject to analytical ex- 
amination as such, but as constituting a subconscious, 
and therefore insidious influence upon the subsequent 
later coloring. 

"The poetic, which is the language of primitive man, 
now appeals to the primitive phases surviving in mod- 
ern man. The Vedas, the psalms and hymns of the an- 
cients have their counterparts in the lyrics and hymns 
of modern times. When giving expression to whole- 
some ideas, poetry and song will ever be a medium of 
word-painting of the joys of nature and of life, but 
as a medium of mental smuggling, they should be for- 
ever banished from our midst. Modern dissemination 
of knowledge on these subjects will help to accomplish 

168 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

it. I predict that the poets of the future will not be 
classed as degenerates by alienists, but that all poetry 
will have to attain to intellectual levels to find publish- 
ers, thus the wild incoordinate imagery will be elim- 
inated as the unfit. 

"All emotions, even when normally occurring, com- 
ing and going in the everyday life, are more or less 
wearing on and aging to the individual, the sum of the 
emotional reactions to the perturbations of a career 
being the aggregate factors of arterial sclerosis and the 
final attainment of senile degeneration. The normal 
or premature development of senility depends upon 
the total of life's vicissitudes weathered by the indi- 
vidual. 

"As we have observed, the emotion is normally an 
effect, not a cause, and the end not the beginning of 
the individual reaction to impressions from without. 
The emotion is then the outward physical expression 
of the motor element of mentation, which has pre- 
ceded and is the direct response to such emotional ele- 
ments as poetry, music, etc., of the subject's expe- 
rience. 

"Unnatural or abnormal emotion may be artificially 
actuated, by a reversal of the normal process, by di- 
rectly exciting a general or universal emotion by a com- 
bination of multitudinous ways and means, and second- 
arily by overwhelming the deliberative faculties with 
the momentum of this violent universal emotion. Such 
is the goal and attainment of the evangelist who subor- 

169 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

dinates the reason of his dupes to the momentum of 
musical emotion. 

"Every student of psychology is more or less ac- 
quainted with the fundamental importance of repeti- 
tion of spoken suggestion in impressing dogmatic and 
empirical statements upon the mind, and with the sub- 
conscious acceptance of such repetitions of spoken sug- 
gestions as fact. 

"Repeated affirmations also, are well known to re- 
ceive increased impelling force by emphatic, forceful, 
and even brutal dictums, decrees, and mandates. The 
hypnotist has long availed himself of these funda- 
mental psychological laws; yet repetitions of recita- 
tion, of equal or greater multiplicity, in the rhythmical 
and emotionalistic singing of hymns, has not received 
the attention that its importance warrants. 

"Emotion is normally the expression of the motor 
element of individual reaction to impressions from 
without, and is exhibited in inverse ratio to the mental 
and physical stability of the individual. It is normally 
and should always be exhibited in direct relation to 
the nature and importance of the exciting factor, when 
in excess of that, it is indicative of hyperesthesia of 
the individual. The response then becomes an exces- 
sive reaction for any degree of external impression. 
Thus music, poetry, romanticism, love, religion, joy, 
and sexual erythrism, all obtain excessive response in 
the physically unstable. 

"According to Loren Jones, musical conductor of the 
170 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Bob Jones revivals, 'A singing congregation is ten 
times as easy to preach to as one that does not sing.' 
The psychology of this is that the auditor who enters 
into the swing and rhythm of the tune, and simultan- 
eously utters the sentences of the song, brings him- 
self, as the French psychologists would say, 'en rap- 
port' with the movement. The repetition of sung 
verses reiterating the Savior status of Jesus by the 
congregation, definitely constitutes a process of auto- 
hypnotism, by virtue of which a multiplicity of repe- 
titions of auto-suggestions of the fundamental doc- 
trine of Jesus as the universal Savior of souls, estab- 
lishes it as a fixed idea, which places its recipient in a 
mental state favorable to the reception of the exhorta- 
tions of the evangelist and his individual workers to 
'hit the trail/ 

"A revival frequenter, who is ignorant of the exist- 
ing historical and other evidence regarding the Bible, 
Jesus, and allied characters and events, and is thus 
unable to do any independent reasoning which would 
lead to a logical conclusion as to the truth or fallacy of 
the prevailing dogmas, is led exclusively by his own 
entering into the spoken reiteration of the tenets of the 
thus drilled-in doctrine, and also to its subsconscious 
acceptance by him as an unquestioned truth. 

"The oft repeated recitation of religious dogma, in 
order to be most effective, is most efficacious for re- 
vival purposes when least deliberated, and experience 
and observation teach us that deliberation of the sub- 

171 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ject of sung verses is much less than that of the 
spoken ones. Here also, the rhythm, the melody, and 
momentum of the emotion of song, overrides the rea- 
son. The tenets, the dogmas, and doctrines of the 
words of a religious song are uttered by the singer in 
different forms in each stanza, while the chorus fol- 
lows each with a perfect repetition. 

"Apart from singing, an individual does not ordi- 
narily say what he does not think, but especially if 
written to music that is tuneful, exhibiting a good 
rhythmic swing and an emotional quality, he recites 
affirmations over and over, in sentences and state- 
ments, any alleged facts of which he knows nothing 
and to which he has perhaps given no thought. It is 
well known that in everyday life, many repetitions of 
mentum of emotional and rhythmical music, combined 
falsehoods, have come to be believed by the storyteller. 
In the singing of religious hymns, one has to the mo- 
mentum of emotional and rhythmical music, combined 
multitudinous repetitions of utterances of religious dog- 
matism which thus are far more potent than when insti- 
gated by spoken repetition alone. 

"Inseparable from the subject of the psychology of 
the verses of hymns, is the psychology of hymn music. 
Hymn music possesses its own peculiar emotional and 
rhythmical values, but varied as to type of emotion to 
be developed for any occasion. Certain hymns exhibit 
an influence toward exaltation, others toward depres- 
sion, some to joy, others to grief, some are cheerful, 

172 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

while others are mournful. Most revival hymns are 
sung with rapidity and force. There is a distinct mo- 
mentum to their high velocity. 

"The large choirs of revivals are not accidents. Not 
only do they give force and volume to their choir ren- 
ditions, but good lead to congregational singing. The 
greater the volume and dynamic energy exhibited, the 
more complete is its compelling emotional sway, the 
more profound is the produced emotion to either exal- 
tation or depression. 

"Professor Bernheim, the medical hynotist of Nancy, 
France, told his patients to eliminate all other ideas 
from the mind, look at him and think of nothing but 
sleep. The modern revivalist clears the mind of every- 
thing but the hymn-text wording, by the singing of 
hymns. He then commands their attention to himself 
by exhibitions of emotion, in both loquacity and motor 
agility. The other mental status, without which hyp- 
notism is impossible, namely the narrowing of the field 
of consciousness, is, as I have explained to you, at- 
tained by the revival process of crowd hypnotism, by 
virtue of which the exercise of the full individual con- 
sciousness is so resisted that subconscious composite 
groups find expression. 

"Alternately, the choir master gives the human top 
a spin, a real whirl of motor activity; the audience is 
then seated and the evangelist proceeds at once to avail 
himself of the choir master's imparted momentum. 
The top runs down, and the choir master repeats his 

173 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

operation several times. Sometimes the top is given 
a better spin by the extra impetus and momentum of the 
sway and swing of two or more songs in succession. 

"The most pronounced results are obtained by the 
highest momentum of a spin, followed by the greatest 
violence of agitation by the evangelist. In all cases, 
the musical impetus is one of motor expression, of 
positive and of active participation, while the evange- 
listic part is one of instilling mental agitation and ex- 
citement, with the motor apparatus quiescent and pas- 
sive or fixed. Such a state is thus one of unvented 
emotion. 

"The evangelist's goal to be obtained is therefore 
a state of explosive instability, which, if carried to 
the bursting point, is attended by impulsive expression, 
even an outburst, which in such cases takes the form of 
a violent show of explosion of pent-up feeling in which 
suppressed motive force suddenly breaks its bonds and 
finds impulsive and rash expression. 

"We should always bear in mind that many individ- 
uals are especially susceptible to evangelism by virtue 
of a special susceptibility to the emotion of music. 
Emotional persons always react more emotionally to 
music than others. The more emotional, the more are 
individuals swayed and captivated by it. Undoubt- 
edly the typical features of great musical geniuses 
which caused Nordau to pronounce them degenerates, 
were the underlying bases of emotionalism which I 
have outlined to you. The same basic status that ren- 
174 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

dered them highly emotional, made them great musi- 
cians. 

''Seldom, if ever, does one observe an unemotional 
person who is musical, or a very musical person who is 
not also emotional. We can therefore understand how 
and why music is emotionalizing, and some types are 
more than others." 

"How intensely interesting," commented Mrs. 
Wheeler. "I had never dreamed so much was known 
regarding the effect of music upon mankind. How- 
ever much we observe human fascination by music, cer- 
tainly I never knew the explanation of how it oper- 
ated. I read in Musical America, in the issue of April 
fourth, I believe it was, a most interesting article by 
Thuel Burnam, entitled "Psychic Influence of Evil 
Virtuosi/ and quoting Alfred Human, if I remember 
correctly, to the effect that a race of recreant men, 
women, and children could be created by evil vir- 
tuosi of sufficient psychic strength. He remarked: 
'Think of a child being engulfed in this psychic ocean 
— and understand why I pray that we will become 
sensible to the need of protecting those tender souls.' " 

"That is indeed interesting, but not surprising," com- 
mented Dr. Austin, "when one recalls that until com- 
paratively modern times the church itself was very 
suspicious of any music within its walls. Finally 
when it was gradually discovered how potent it is in 
accelerating the emotions and all the other effects I 
have mentioned, it has been progressively adopted 
more and more until it attained its present importance. 

175 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Singing of hymns appears superficially to be inno- 
cent enough, and it is difficult to bring oneself to a 
realization of any possible wrong in their objective or 
application. Religion itself, with all its faults, ap- 
pears on the surface so associated with ethics that one 
unconsciously shrinks from believing that anything 
done in the name of religion is not wholesome for both 
body and soul. We are not concerned with whatever 
it may be so long as it does not exert a morbid influ- 
ence. If it can be revised, reformed, or improved on 
that score I would be truly glad. 

"Whenever religion or anything else is productive 
of emotionalism that unfits people for -the strenuous 
demands of modern life, it becomes a curse instead 
of a blessing, and as a wolf in sheep's clothing it is all 
the more powerful, for in such cases we fail to avoid 
what we should or would, did we but realize its true 
significance. 

"At the present time we are at war with four Euro- 
pean nations. We are called upon to send our best 
young manhood to fight the battles all over again for 
which our forefathers fought and died. We are again 
fighting, in the words of the immortal Lincoln, that 
we as a republic 'shall endure and not perish from the 
earth/ 

"The experience of all of the combatants of the 

great war has demonstrated the military unfitness of 

the hyperesthetics, or as they variously call them, the 

neurotics, the neuropaths, and psycopaths, according 

176 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

to their dominant manifestations. Such men, whether 
products of emotion instigating religion, of alcohol, 
sexual vices, or what not, owing to their hyperesthesia 
and irritable weakness, are unable to withstand the 
rigors of discipline and the hardships of modem war- 
fare. Their excessive reactions to the many sensorial 
impacts of the soldier, combined with their lack of 
stamina, tend to their early mental collapse. Their 
innate timidity predestines them as cowards and pre- 
disposes them to surrender and desertion when op- 
portunity presents. Their lack of resolution and cour- 
age makes them poor material for a charge or for with- 
standing an assault from an enemy. Their natural dis- 
loyalty and proclivities to treachery make them un- 
reliable soldiers. Their restlessness, discontent, and 
disgruntledness predispose them to become discord- 
ant elements in the ranks, and nuclei of disaffection. 
They may volunteer as a result of a whim and be ready 
to break away from the service before they see real 
war. Their unscrupulousness is exhibited in intrigues, 
subterfuges, and malingering. Their veracity is so 
bad that they cannot be trusted with any duty involving 
moral integrity. 

"Their general weakness of character predisposes 
them to become the prey of all manner of human vul- 
tures and exploiters, and to be swept off their feet by 
their own capricious and frivolous fascinations and 
fanaticisms. Especially the asthenic types, the subjects 
of extremes of irritable weakness, are prone to be- 

177 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

come paralyzed, either rigid or quivering with fear, 
which is incapacitating. The insomnia to which these 
cases are especially disposed, even in times of peace, 
completely incapacitates them for recuperation when 
off duty. The mental breakdown often follows the 
prostration incident to the addition of insomnia to the 
excessive recoils to the vicissitudes of active conflict 
v/hich thus make sleep impossible. A soldier's inability 
to adapt and conform to mass action, in complete re- 
straint of independent action, is attended by explosive 
outbursts when the limit of his tolerance has been ex- 
ceeded. Then is when the soldier goes to pieces. 
After the first convulsive outburst, if the soldier con- 
tinues in the ranks or trenches, the second one is pro- 
duced more readily than the first, and they continue 
progressively until the complete one ends the career. 
The order of events closely simulates that of the re- 
vival. 

"General Funston well knew this when he refused 
to permit the Baptists to emotionalize his troops on 
the Mexican border, yet permitting non-emotional 
forms of religion. He was wise from the military 
viewpoint. He could not afford to have his men 
subjected to convulsive outbursts in the form of re- 
ligious conversions as a part of their preparation for 
the then anticipated Mexican strife. I anticipate that 
many of the products of this revival recruiting station 
will be found unfit for the excessive rigors of the Eu- 
ropean conflict, the required stamina for which ex- 
ceeds by far that of any previous war of history." 
178 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Glancing at the clock, Dr. Austin suddenly realized 
that he had remained until an unusually late hour, and 
apologizing to Mrs. Wheeler for possibly boring her 
with an excessive elaboration of his theme, however 
mutually interesting, and thanking her for his most 
enjoyable dinner, hurriedly took his departure. 



179 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter XL 

AS DR. AUSTIN pondered upon Hamilton's con- 
dition, he thought of his old friend, Dr. Allen 
■McLean, another alienist, equally eminent with 
himself, with whom he had for many years been asso- 
ciated in hospital and institutional practice. Many great 
cases had they studied, analyzed, and treated in per- 
fect co-operation. In some which were unusual and 
baffling, the clue which one could not find would oc- 
cur to the other, so they grew to have more and more 
confidence and respect for each other with the lapse of 
time. 

Dr. Austin and Dr. McLean had both studied many 
border-line and pronounced cases of insanity which had 
originated in religious excitement, and naturally the 
case of Hamilton, in which Dr. Austin was now so 
deeply interested, he wished to discuss in every phase 
with his old professional friend. The question that 
most perplexed him in this respect was the initial 
bringing of Dr. McLean into the case without creating 
undue solicitude on the part of Mrs. Wheeler, or ex- 
citing suspicion in Hamilton that he was at all mentally 
deranged, which would certainly depress him, and in 
any event make the case more difficult to handle. 

Dr. Austin thoughtfully considered the idea of bring- 
ing Dr. McLean into the case until he next saw Mrs. 
Wheeler, when he thus broached the idea : "Helen, my 
dear, you know how long I have known and respected 

180 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Dr. McLean, and how close we have been profession- 
ally, both in private practice and hospital service for a 
quarter of a century. You know we have been like 
brothers, and in fact more intimate and congenial than 
many brothers. For many years our relations have 
also been most confidential. He has repeatedly taken 
me into his confidence, as I have him, at first in exclu- 
sively professional matters, then in all manner of sub- 
jects, after each of us found the other entirely loyal 
and trustworthy. 

"You know how interested I am in Hamilton's case, 
and how anxious I am to neglect nothing that may be 
beneficial to him. Now I want to bring Dr. McLean's 
experience and mind to bear on this case. It can do 
no harm, it will go no further, and it may be productive 
of much good. I would then have someone with whom 
to discuss the matter when we are by ourselves. You 
know how satisfactory it is to talk over any subject by 
progressive interchange of ideas. The wealthy always 
avail themselves of such advantages, and certainly you 
should when it will cost you nothing." 

Mrs. Wheeler was startled at the suggestion of hav- 
ing the additional services of such a distinguished neu- 
rologist as Dr. McLean without cost, and inquired anx- 
iously how such a thing could be accomplished. She 
knew of the universal prevalence in the medical pro- 
fession of gratuitous professional services between 
physicians, and to those financially dependent upon 
them, and which is also based upon the general ac- 

181 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ceptance of the fact that he who is least agitated and 
disturbed by worry and anxiety, is the best qualified to 
render his maximum service; but Hamilton's case, at 
least so far as Mrs. Wheeler knew, did not come within 
that scope. 

Dr. Austin at once caught her point of view, and pro- 
ceeded to allay all apprehension on that score. "You 
see, my dear," he continued, "Dr. McLean and I often 
co-operate with each other on difficult cases without 
pay, sometimes when the patients are virtually paupers. 
We do much purely for the advancement of science. 
The public has a right to expect much more from us 
specialists, as exclusively devoted to our special de- 
partments, than from general practitioners of medi- 
cine, and in fact general practitioners themselves con- 
tinually refer their most difficult cases to us because 
they also expect more from us. To meet these demands 
we have to be continually solving new problems, and 
the most difficult ones that we meet in this way. This 
work we invariably do together. These are the subjects 
of our many talks together. Being the subjects of our 
greatest interest, these are the subjects of our gossip. 
So you see you can safely leave that part of it to me. 
This will not be regarded as a charitable, but as a per- 
sonal case, personal to me. The fact that it is my case 
is enough." 

The thought of having so much done for Hamilton 
that she could never have afforded, touched her deep- 
ly. A pathetic emotion was betrayed by the moistening 

182 



The Conversion of Hamilton, Wheeler 

of her eyes and the quiver of her lip. She could not 
help thinking what would she have done, what would 
another mother do in the absence of this gratuitous 
medical skill, otherwise so beyond her reach financially. 
Would she, in that event, have entered Hamilton as a 
pauper for free treatment ? She could not restrain the 
thought that if civil governments permitted such maim- 
ing of an innocent public, they should take care of the 
human derelicts so produced. Then she thought of 
the increase of general taxation that would be involved 
in such an undertaking, and did not mention it. 

Dr. Austin became somewhat impatient at the ap- 
parent hesitancy of Mrs. Wheeler to reply to his prop- 
osition. So much had passed through her mind that 
she did not appreciate the lapse of time, but observing 
Dr. Austin's restlessness, she was reminded that he was 
waiting for a reply, and she hastened to give her as- 
sent with pathetic tones of gratitude. 

The next question was the introduction of Dr. Mc- 
McLean into the case without exciting Hamilton's ap- 
prehension. All these things have to receive careful at- 
tention in all mental cases, and are not overlooked by 
experienced neurologists. Hamilton had never met Dr. 
McLean, and it was first arranged for an apparently 
accidental meeting. 

By prearrangement, the next day, Dr. Austin tele- 
phoned Mrs. Wheeler that he was detained in his office 
by a consultation with Dr. McLean, and he would ap- 
preciate it if she would bring Hamilton over to his of- 

183 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

fice, instead of his calling on her. To this she assented, 
and turning to Hamilton asked him to accompany her 
to her uncle's office. As Hamilton had overheard the 
conversation, he went along without asking any ques- 
tions. 

On arriving at their destination they were promptly 
received in the Doctor's private office. Dr. McLean 
was introduced, and immediately politely remarked 
that he would hurry along and not intrude on their 
time and privacy. Dr. Austin took his hand in his, 
and holding it, observed: "Doctor, with the consent 
of Mrs. Wheeler and Hamilton, I would like to bring 
to your attention what I regard as a most interesting 
case. Not because it is rare, but because we have not 
studied this class of diseases as we should in the past, 
as we have met them in a more isolated way." 

Dr. Austin continued: "As this young man is my 
nephew and heir, perhaps he will not feel imposed upon 
if we use him as a study for the advancement of medi- 
cal science, so long as we agree not to hurt him in any 
way." 

Turning to Mrs. Wheeler, Dr. Austin remarked: 
"We have a pretty good grasp of this type of cases, but 
not so good as we shall have in a little while. The hos- 
pital at the tabernacle is being well patronized, and 
while to be sure the physicians in charge there pos- 
sibly follow up these cases to some extent, yet many of 
them will sooner or later come to our attention, and 
probably in large numbers. We shall see them in both 
hospital and private practice." 
184 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"You see," said Dr. Austin, "since the so-called Great 
Awakenings, of Solomon Stoddard in five 'harvests,' 
from 1679 to 1718, of Jonathan Edwards, Stoddard's 
grandson, of Whitefield from 1740 to 1770, of the 
Wesley s up to 1790, those of James McGready and 
the McGee brothers from 1799 to sometime prior to 
1815, and C. G. Finney in 1832 and later, they have ex- 
hibited their morbid effects before our time, and the 
physicians of those periods have left us practically 
nothing in the way of elucidating studies of the cases 
then manufactured by the wholesale. In fact, we must 
remember that neurology and psychiatry were then 
practically unborn." 

"Much harm has undoubtedly been done by all the 
evangelists you have mentioned," said Dr. McLean, 
"but I have been impressed that our present evangelist 
imitates an early New Englander James Davenport 
more closely than any other, both in methods and evil 
affects. This Connecticut minister yelled at his con- 
gregation at the top of his voice and to his utmost lung 
capacity: 'You poor unconverted creatures in the 
seats, in the pews, in the galleries, I wonder you don't 
drop into hell ! It would not surprise me. I should not 
wonder at it if I should see you drop down this minute 
into hell. You Pharisees, hypocrites, now, now, now, 
you are going right into the bottom of hell ! I wonder 
you don't drop into hell by scores and hundreds/ etc. 
He also, not unlike our present ex-sport, came out of 
the pulpit, stripped off his upper garments, and got up 

185 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

into the seats and leaped up and down several times, 
clasped his hands together, and cried out: The war 
goes on, the fight goes on, the Devil goes down, the 
Devil goes down.' Davenport then began stamping 
and screaming dreadfully. The emotional contagion 
was complete, and many of his audience fell into fits 
and to uttering shrieks. His performances were ended 
by his arrest and adjudgment as insane, as I expect the 
career of his present-day parrot to end."* 

As soon as Hamilton was ready, the two physicians 
proceeded methodically to many curious tests. The 
jerk reaction on striking the leg just below the knee-cap, 
the ankle reaction elicited on an abrupt movement of 
the foot, the sensation of the surface of the body was 
carefully gone over, and many others too numerous 
to mention. Then they put Hamilton through a spe- 
cies of third degree to determine his mental status. 
All this Dr. Austin had purposely deferred until the 
preliminary excitement had passed off, and until Dr. 
McLean could be present and participate in it. 

Mrs. Wheeler looked on curiously. During the 
physical part of the examination she observed : "Uncle, 
I don't see how a mental cause can result in anything 
so organic or physical as you appear to be looking for." 

Dr. Austin smiled knowingly, and said:, "My dear, 
that is a very common, but a very serious error. Some 
of the most serious diseases with which we have to 
cope are of mental or emotional causation. Of course, 
everyone knows of St. Vitus' Dance and allied afflic- 

*See Appendix D. 
186 



The Conversion of Hamilton, Wheeler 

tions resulting from fright, of hysteria following pan- 
ics, etc., but we know that Raynaud's disease, with 
dead fingers and even gangrene of the extremities, may 
and does follow very severe fright, while diabetes not 
infrequently is caused by the shock-emotion of sudden 
loss of fortune and the like. Many cases are on record 
of development of Bright's disease and cancer fol- 
lowing profound emotions of grief, protracted anxiety 
and worry sufficient to cause continued insomnia, and 
a sustained state of intense perturbation." 

"I would assure you," interposed Dr. McLean, "that 
this very idea in the public mind that everything from a 
mental cause is of but a transient mental condition 
and is effaced simply by a change of the mental atti- 
tude, as of a change of religious belief, or from depres- 
sion or pessimism, is most unfortunate. It is doing a 
vast amount of harm, not only by causing people to 
neglect such cases of apparently insignificant conse- 
quences of super-emotion, but also to neglect these 
causes of emotion as unimportant, owing to which, 
public apathy toward revival injury is almost universal. 

"Only by much admonition to parents have we been 
able to impress upon them the possible injury induced 
by frightening children as a part of their measure of 
discipline. Telling them ghost, boogy, and burglar 
stories, and producing terror for fun is most pernicious, 
and it is for the same reason that terrorizing them by 
apprehensions of death, of eternal burning in hell, and 
picturing hell and hordes of devils, is such a crime 
against the little ones that laws should be enacted 

187 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

to punish it. Indeed, the word religion need not be 
mentioned in the statutes of such general protective 
measures. " 

"One reason, Helen," observed Dr. Austin, "that we 
have not seen more of these cases in the past, is that 
revivals are the greatest institutions of proselytism to 
Christian Science and kindred cults ever invented. It 
is a singular fact, and it was commonly observed at 
the time, that the earlier revivals were the dependable 
recruiting agencies of the New England Shakers, who, 
being celibates, were deprived of the accessions of their 
own children to membership. They thrived, however, 
exclusively on the recruits from the harvests, who 
were converted by the revivals which were held for the 
benefit of regular orthodox Evangelical churches.* 

"The emotional upheaval produced by the revival is 
productive of an intense desire on the part of its vic- 
tims for rest and peace, and for a restoration of their 
former mental balance and sense of poise. Their con- 
tinued sense of restless instability, which, owing to 
their insomnia, is well nigh continuous for the twenty- 
four hours of the day, impels them to act and continue 
to act till they obtain some kind of relief. True, stren- 

*On the origin and sustinance of Shakerism from early 
revivals, see Charles Nordhoff's Communistic Societies of the 
United States, New York, 1875, pp. 119-131. See also Spirit- 
ual Wives,, Phila. 1868, pp. 347-351, letter of Rev. John H. 
Noyes to W. H. Dixon, its author, showing evolution from 
revivals to Shakerism, evolution from religious to sexual 
love and polygamy, the role of revivals as breeders of social 
irregularities and revolutions, and the morbid results of re- 
vivals involving the evolution to Shakerism as exhibited by the 
confession of Marquis L. Worden. See Appendix E. 
188 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

uous measures are made to keep track of and corral 
them before they can get away from the evangelical 
sphere of influence, but everyone has his or her friends, 
and there are nowadays most always one or more 
'Scientists' or 'New Thoughters' among them, who get 
them without delay. Those cults make a specialty of 
this type of cases. One experience meeting attendance 
assures them of the past success of the cult in similar 
cases, and the rest is easy." 

Hamilton had been attentively listening to all Dr. 
Austin had said, and he now lost no time in asking if 
some such thing would do him any good. Dr. Austin 
answered with a merry twinkle in his eye : "You might 
try it, my boy, except for the valuable time you would 
lose if you deferred medical treatment pending such a 
trial. The more promptly you are properly treated, the 
easier and sooner will be your complete recovery. 

"In such a treatment some degree of religious ecstasy 
and of exaltation must be produced to sustain you 
at all. Nothing would be done to build up your general 
health, and the required course of Bible and text-book 
reading would add to your present school demands on 
your time and energies. We can do much more for 
you if you give up all effort and anxiety to graduate 
this year. One of our problems would be to make all 
these ends meet. I would like to send you to the coun- 
try, or for an ocean voyage as a part of the building 
up program." 

"But tell me frankly, Uncle, do these cults really 
cure and do what they claim?" 

189 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Yes," responded Dr. Austin, "a certain percent of 
their cases do become practically well, either through 
the suggestions of the operators or healers, or nature, 
as, of course, a certain percentage of cases run a course 
and get well, and would without anything being done. 
Yet others get worse and die." 

Dr. McLean leaned forward, and addressing himself 
to Hamilton saidj "All hypnotic suggestion depends 
upon the personality and method of the operator. Sug- 
gestion in the waking state is not as powerful and effi- 
cient for therapeutic purposes as it is when adminis- 
tered when the patient is in a state of hypnotic sleep, 
and yet the Nancy (French) school never produces 
deep sleep, but gives much therapeutic suggestion ex- 
clusively in the waking or semi-waking state." 

"To continue on the answer of your previous ques- 
tion,' observed Dr. Austin to Mrs. Wheeler, "there are 
many ailments produced through the mind, and though 
as first caused they are simply derangements, they be- 
come organic diseases that no mere suggestion will in- 
fluence. Any area or organ of the body will promptly 
deteriorate when the blood is deflected from the capil- 
laries that supply its oxygenation and nourishment. 'It 
is akin to turning the course of a river away from a 
besieged city. If persevered in till all available supplies 
are exhausted, all the inhabitants will rapidly die. 
Abnormality will precede death. The survival would 
be solely a matter of duration of the deprivation. Re- 
ligiously imposed terror is like any other in its effect 

190 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

upon the animal body, the blood is driven into the 
great venous trunks along the spine, simulating the state 
of death, leaving the surface and extremities as white 
and cold as they are bloodless, and thus asphyxiated. 

"The suggestion treatments of Christian Science and 
the so-called New Thought cults, are on the order of 
the Nancy school of hypnotism, but are less efficacious 
than the French methods, for the dual reason that the) 
are less profound in exclusively waking states, and 
also because the cult treatments are not scientifically 
and discriminatingly applied by expert students of the 
whole subject. These healers are quite entirely ignorant 
of the diseases treated, and exercise no discrimination 
in the adaptation and application of treatment to dif- 
ferent cases. They also know nothing of any but faith 
healing practices. It is one and the same treatment 
for all cases, and it is thus necessarily a hit or miss 
affair. If a general education and training underlaid 
their therapeutic efforts, it is safe to say their treat- 
ment would be more varied and discriminated, and their 
results would be much improved." 

"I thank you heartily," said Hamilton. "I see and 
appreciate fully your yiewpoint. I am content to trust 
my case to scientific specialists. I am not particular 
about any special fad in the treatment of my case. If 
you can only bring me back to my original strength and 
capacity, I will never cease to express my gratitude. 
Now if you are through with me for the present, I 
would like to go home and lie down a little while. 

191 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Mother will take any prescription and directions you 
agree upon. Good night." 

He then returned home. 

After Hamilton was safely out of hearing, Dr. 
Austin remarked : "One hardly knows where to begin 
or end discussion of so enormous and unbroken a field 
as we have in the subject of the psycho-pathology of 
religion." 

"Especially," rejoined Dr. McLean, "in the time re- 
maining to us. There are so many factors adroitly 
blended together in the general revival scheme of the 
present day, that one is at a loss to discern which is 
the most potent or important. They all seem to be 
worked in just where they belong and where they will 
be most efficacious in the eventual accomplishment of 
the end result." 

"I have noted," observed Dr. Austin, "that perhaps 
the most important respect in which the present evange- 
list differs from his less successful predecessors in this 
field, are his own emotional activity, his rapid fire 
loquacity, and, most potent of all, the violence of his 
assaults and the shock and traumatism to the sense 
organs and the receptive tissues beyond of his audi- 
tors, caused by his vehement and deafening shouting, 
his stentorian and thundering emphasis of his affir- 
mations, of his galling imprecations, acrimonious and 
envenomed invectives, and his brutal denunciations of 
his opponents. The end results, the production in the 
auditor of a sense of conviction of sin, is, in the opin- 

192 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ion of the Rev. Alfred Sheldrick (who is now suing 
Billy Sunday for $25,000.00 for breach of contract, 
in violating the valuable literature and postcard con- 
cessions at the tabernacles), the point in which Sun- 
day excels his nearest approaches among the most 
successful revivalists of the present generation. This 
induced sense of conviction of sin is basically one of 
profound depression, and is the immediate reaction 
expression of the violence and traumatism of the 
bombarding efforts of the evangelist." 

"It is observed," interposed Dr. McLean, "that the 
threshold of the sensorial receptive tissues of the brain 
exhibit a remarkable capacity for violence of impres- 
sions, and for recuperation from all outrages of their 
function. Even when subjected to fatigue exhaus- 
tion it quickly recuperates, and exhibits the effects 
only in loss of tissue density, and hence in precocious 
and excessive subsequent reactions. 

"What I have said of the tissues of the sensorial 
threshold, however, cannot be said of the distribution 
to distal engramic tissues beyond which are exhibited 
end results of all degrees of tetanic rigor, and conse- 
quent functional inhibition when subjected to violence 
of sense impressions. 

"In all cases, from all causes, when the nobler en- 
gramic or memory recording tissues are thus inhibited 
or in abeyance, and the primitive elements are freed 
from the restraining influence of the modifying nobler 
elements, the individuals exhibiting it manifest the de- 

193 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

graded attributes of the vicious, the unscrupulous, the 
immoral, and the criminal. 

"In some cases the two mental elements exhibit 
such marked contrast and separate identities that they 
are characterized as instances of double consciousness, 
and in some cases as dual personalities, which are 
individually analyzable, the good and evil entities, 
the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of psychology. We ob- 
serve the normally full conscious group, on the one 
hand, and the morbid or subsconscious group, on the 
other, the latter one of which shows itself only as a 
partial group, and an incomplete fraction of a full one. 

"In the researches in the domain of double con- 
sciousness which have so wonderfully elucidated that 
department of psychology, it was discovered a num- 
ber of years ago that some fully conscious individuals 
exhibit such a complete division of their conscious 
from their own subsconscious egos, that they can 
actually communicate with them. Just as individual 
units of crowds are not conscious of the roles played 
by the subconscious elements in their supposedly en- 
tirely voluntary acts, we are not ordinarily conscious 
of the role of the part played in our thoughts and 
acts by our subconscious groups. 

"A planchette, which is a little board about the 
size of the open hand, is set, generally on three sen- 
sitively revolving small and light castors. If a person 
exhibiting a duality of his consciousness now rests 
his hand on it lightly, touching it only with the tips 

194 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

of the fingers and thumb, and silently thinks or 
audibly asks questions ; after a little wait, accompanied 
perhaps with some degree of restlessness, a pencil ad- 
justed in a hole through the board for the purpose, 
and the point resting lightly on a sheet of paper on 
the table, will write answers to the questions, such 
as are possible to the subconscious groups of mental 
impressions of that individual, but frequently of things 
of which the person has not at that time conscious 
knowledge or memory. The original source of this 
knowledge can later be determined by questioning the 
individual when in the hypnotic state, at which time 
the subconscious ego finds expression as it does in 
the involuntary writing with the planchette. 

"Perceptions of subconscious groups which have 
never attained recognition of the conscious attention, 
sense impressions of such early youth that the cons- 
cious pictures at the time were inadequate, and things 
and events which have been forgotten, are among 
the subconscious ego finds expression as it does in 
external expression by the planchette and by hyp- 
notism. 

"On the promise that that which attains to the at- 
tention, is that which finds unity and focus, it is ob- 
vious thatsubconscious groups when freed from the 
repressive stress of stronger representations, are then 
enabled to focus independently and give expression to 
the subconscious ego. The instances of induced temper- 
ary abeyance of the stronger representations in the 



195 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

mental conclave, by hypnotism and in planchette writ- 
ing are illustrative of artificially facilitating a lower 
grade and potential focus of a sub-group or fugitive 
ego in an outward expression. In hypnotism we have 
apparent suppression of the stronger groups, whereas 
in planchette writing, it appears rather as affording 
an outlet for jveak, independent groups, not otherwise 
possible under the existing collective stress which is 
not materially reduced." 

"That is the most interesting thing you have told 
me yet," enthusiastically commented Mrs. Wheeler, 
"but I always thought that the planchette and hyp- 
notic clairvoyance were utilized exclusively to com- 
municate with the spirits of the dead." 

"Well, that is true," replied Dr. Austin, "since 
before every mystery is elucidated, a supernatural ex- 
planation has always been given to it. 

"In the cases of the planchette and clairvoyance, 
whether the spontaneous one of abnormal states or 
that of hypnotism, the subconscious groups of percep- 
tions were not recognized as belonging to them by the 
conscious personalities, so they were interpreted as 
and communicated with as disembodied spirits. These 
observations were at one time regarded as the most 
perfect proofs of spiritualism, but now no one be- 
lieves in such nonsense but those who are ignorant 
of the truths elucidated by psychology. 

"Not unlike many persons who choose to believe 
religious dogma because they so want it to be as rep- 

196 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

resented, many persist in remaining dupes of spirit 
mediums because they prefer to believe they are com- 
municating with their beloved dead. They don't want 
to know any psychology which will provide any other 
interpretation of these things." 

Dr. McLean remarked: "I think comparatively 
few realize the full significance of the law that emo- 
tion and reason occur in inverse ratio to one another, 
or appreciate the great evil imposed when emotion- 
alism is artfully fostered and intellection is thus arti- 
ficially retarded or inhibited. The crime of purpose- 
ful instigation of wholesale emotionalism at the ex- 
pense of reason is especially pernicious in democracies 
where it is most important to encourage and develop 
independent reasoning among individuals empowered 
with suffrage, and in this age when both men and 
women are so completely organized into various mu- 
tually hostile camps economically. It is obvious that 
individuals, who are bereft of reason and are too 
easily swayed by every emotional harangue of dema- 
gogues whom they thus permit to do their reasoning 
for them, are a menace to any community. 

"Women have in the past been more amenable to 
the emotional sway of demagogues than men, and as 
might be expected, have been the leaders in fanatical 
demonstrations, and riots of industrial disagreements. 
Now that women are quite universally succeeding 
to suffrage in our country, it is more than ever im- 
portant that they should cultivate and develop emo- 
tional control and the exercise of reason. 

197 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Most unfortunately, there has long been mani- 
fested a disposition on the part of public speakers and 
writers to idealize and even to deify that half de- 
liberated and half emotional faculty, most common 
in women and children, termed intuition. Like all 
functional processes of mental type, intuition is based 
more or less on hereditary as well as acquired human 
experience, but it is composed of thoughts and decis- 
ions which are launched emotionally and prematurely 
in a but partly reasoned-out manner, ignoring many 
important factors which not infrequently appear on 
the mental horizon, after a deed is done, words have 
been uttered, or a fit of frenzied fanaticism has passed 
off, often too late to mend, 

"Theologians have characterized intuition as divine, 
poets have pictured it as sublime, gallants have glori- 
fied it as the ideal mentality of the fair sex, and none 
have combated it as a menace to modern womanhood, 
as it should be to all, other than the women of bygone 
ages, who were the dolls and playthings of men, and 
had neither rights nor responsibilities other than as 
wife and mother." 

"I think," interposed Dr. Austin, " everyone has 
noted the effort of religionists to deify intuition, but 
I am convinced that it occurs parallel with impulsive 
expression and super-loquacity in general, and in those 
individuals in whom oral and other physical expres- 
sions commonly antedate anything like adequate de- 
liberation of the subject of the utterance. The alco- 

198 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

holic combines immature deliberation of expressed 
thought with discontinuity, a child exhibits less con- 
tinuity and greater impulsive expressiveness of im- 
mature deliberations than a woman. Women exhibit 
higher thought continuities than children, but to the 
extent that they are intuitive in their mental opera- 
tions, they are inversely deficient in reason. 

"Intuition is very highly the expression of subcon- 
scious groups. The more sensitive and impressionable 
the person the more will the susconscious groups be 
crowded with immature impressions which have been 
transmitted with such velocity and force that they 
have made their impress, and been later reproduced 
as immature perceptions. One thing which I think is 
neglected by psychologists in general, and which needs 
reconsideration, is that ordinarily in the due course 
of events, an individual mentally weighs and passes 
upon or interprets all his perceptions as they come to 
him as crude impressions. 

"Each more or less elaborated current impression, 
in turn, as a perception complex, later reacts upon fu- 
ture current perceptions in the role of a past one, and 
so on ad infinitum. In this manner accrued past im- 
pressions are brought to bear, in their elaboration, up- 
on the current ones. We have so far considered only 
the extent to which current impressions are elaborated 
by the interaction of preceding complexes, and without 
a thought as to whether the past ones per se were per- 
fect or imperfect. They, of course, were subject to 

199 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

the same vicissitudes as are now encountered by the 
present or current impressions, and if they were im- 
perfectly elaborated or made faulty by imperfect ante- 
cedents, all their products must be analyzed with that 
fact in view. 

"We should, therefore, in the last analysis, give heed 
to an individual's pedigree of mental synthesis, and of 
all his past mental habits and vices. If current impres- 
sions are ever so well elaborated by imperfect past 
perceptions, we have as imperfect a product as we 
would have with an incomplete elaboration, when the 
interacting past perceptions were normally perfect. 
The mental product is thus the sum of an individual's 
accrued past crude and elaborated impressions in elab- 
oration of a current impression which brought the in- 
teraction of the past one into being." 

"I feel strongly," said Dr. McLean, "that a most 
important, though neglected reason why over-forceful 
and violent sense impressions are of such a low order 
of intellectual value, is on account of their high ve- 
locity of transmission and violence of impact on and 
through the sense organs and the receptive tissues be- 
yond, and that the incident modifying reactions are so 
incomplete in eliciting associated reproductions, which 
are necessary for their proper interpretation and eluci- 
dation as ripe perceptions, that when they are called 
into association with future perceptions, the resultant 
deliberative process is defective from this cause, as 
well as from any subsequent ones which might be 



200 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

due to deficiency of association of these as past per- 
ceptions with subsequent current ones. 

"An individual who is super-sensitive and super- 
impressionable from the usual underlying! physical 
status of low density of tissue, with its typical exces- 
sive reactions to all stimuli from without, and who 
thus is the personal equivalent of the normal man 
who is the recipient of ultra- violent sense impacts, 
must in the nature of things, in every defective men- 
tal operation in which current sense impressions are 
imperfectly, and incompletely deliberated, leave an 
imperfectly modified perception registered for partici- 
pation in the current deliberations of the future, 
wherein the new sense perceptions are depend- 
ent upon the groups of prior ones for the in- 
tegrity of their functional product. So you ob- 
serve, our best thought comes, not only from the 
quantity, but also the quality of past representations 
combining in it. Also we should consider that the same 
physical causes inherent in an individual, and the same 
external causes of excessive reaction, with their con- 
comitant imperfect and incomplete associated inter- 
reactions, produce a progressive and accumulative de- 
teriorating effect upon the mind commencing with the 
beginning of the personal defect, or the excessive im- 
pacts on the normal individual from without. 

"In time, the registered past impressions of abnor- 
mal crudeness may outnumber the other ones of nor- 
mal integrity, and result in defective deliberations for 
a long period of progressive purgation of the 

201 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

long accruing saturation of perceptions of the past. 
Thus is observed the potency of prolonged periods of 
hyperesthesia of the subject and of drilling in dogmas 
of faith over long periods of time in normal subjects, 
in influencing future years of mental activity. 

"These defective past impressions of the full con- 
scious values, must be regarded as on a par with 
weaker ones which never attain conscious attention, 
and are unmodified by conscious deliberation owing to 
that fact. The difference is one of degree only. The 
separation from consciousness of subconscious groups, 
is less completely exhibited by these intermediate 
ones." 

Mrs. Wheeler arose, apologizing that she hesitated 
to break into this most interesting discussion as she 
was eager to hear more of it, but the lateness of the 
hour compelled her to return to her home. 

Dr. Austin quickly said: "I hope you have taken 
no offense at the remarks on intuition." 

"Not at all," she promptly replied, "I have never 
had the gift of intuition, and never regarded it highly 
in other women. I am not one of those women like 
cousin Martha, who are sensitive of the mental attrib- 
utes or jealous on the economic position of women. I 
hope for growth and betterment in both sexes, but I 
am willing to trust our best men as the best friends 
of women, and I have more confidence in them than 
in the class of suffragette disturbers of the peace who 
set themselves up as self-appointed champions of my 
202 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

sex. I wish all women could interpret themselves and 
adapt themselves in the light of some of the knowledge 
I have had. the good fortune to acquire from you 
medical men." 

Thanking Dr. McLean sincerely for his kind in- 
terest and attention to Hamilton's case, while cor- 
dially grasping his hand, then turning to Dr. Austin 
and affectionately kissing him, she bade both good- 
bye and hurried back to her home, whither Hamilton 
had some time before preceded her. 

After her departure, Dr. Austin observed enthusias- 
tically : "If all women were like Helen Wheeler, there 
would be no need of feminist movements, nor for a 
new movement now to solve the problems why women 
are so : why women sustain all sorts of mysticisms, 
religions, and philosophies, so-called, both Oriental and 
Occidental, and continue to cultivate and deify emo- 
tions, intuitions, ecstatic imaginations and visions, with 
all their connected morbidities of mind and entailed 
enslavement to venal institutions which effectually 
forestall woman's intellectual advancement, which 
should precede every other. If all were like my niece, 
men would not err in entrusting everything to them. 
Perfect woman is the ideal of all men, but man must 
help to perfect her, both physically and mentally." 

"I appreciate the force of your statement," com- 
mented Dr. McLean. "I could not help but think of 
the contrast between your two nieces. I know Mrs. 
Wheeler is as lovely a character as Mrs. Wheatcroft 

203 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

is unlovely. It is obvious that we have in the world 
every gradation of transition between the types of 
your two nieces, and while we should have a great 
majority like Mrs. Wheeler, it is a lamentable fact 
that we have a large majority who are more like 
Mrs. Wheatcroft. It is a vicious habit of body and 
mind that women have been developing for thousands 
of years, yet they could get out of it in a generation 
if they would only go at it right. Call it an oversexed 
state if you will. It has been largely due to making 
woman a sedentary animal and carrying it to excess. 
We bring them up as though we were producing fat 
goose livers for pate de foie gras. No wonder their 
soft tissues react precociously and excessively, and 
that we reap what we sow in them as our daughters." 

"If I had my way about it," interposed Dr. Austin, 
"I would begin a country-wide campaign of education 
for women. Teach them that all kinds of emotions, 
ecstacies, visions of spirits, ghosts, gods, devils, and 
the like, all intuitions, inspirations, and other flashes 
of a subconscious status, are not glimpses of the super- 
natural, but are distinctly symptoms of the subnormal, 
which can be seen in advanced states of development 
in insane asylums. 

"When a woman observes herself advancing to- 
ward such states, she should know that she should 
take steps at once to get away from it, get out of 
doors, exercise, take cold baths, and have a good 
physician see to it that the diet and regimen is cor- 

204 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

rect, that the quality of the blood, the circulation, res- 
piration, the heart, the digestion, and the avenues of 
elimination are all they should be. Never should she 
permit herself to drift into any delusional interpreta^ 
tions of them or to hallucinations. 

"When people approach such a state, they and 
their families should know that they should be kept 
away from churches, spiritualists, theosophy, Vedanta, 
and other Hinduisms, and above all, from re- 
vivals. Pains should be taken to keep them from all 
emotionalism, depression, and morbid introspection. 

"Sound inductive reasoning on well weighed evi- 
dence should be cultivated, while the imagination and 
the emotions should be correspondingly restrained and 
distrusted, and should never be drawn upon to com- 
pensate for lack of evidence on any point. Morbidly 
sustained meditations on post-mortem existences ac- 
complish no good, since no real knowledge on the sub- 
ject is available, and they do incalculable harm. The 
healthy mind does not dwell upon such topics, and 
should be diverted from them as quickly as possible 
following the grief of losing one who is near and 
dear." 

"Bravo!" enthusiastically interjected Dr. McLean. 
"So much pains are taken by church-folk to magnify 
and perpetuate the grief of loss by death, medical men 
indeed experience much trouble in overcoming it and 
saving those who survive. I always believed and 
taught that mourning customs were pernicious, and 

205 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

I do believe the world would be happier, healthier, 
and economically better off if public funerals were dis- 
pensed with, and people would at once resume the 
normal habits of life after tenderly laying away their 
dead, away from public gaze. Funerals are a great 
and unhappy ordeal for the grief-stricken, and cer- 
tainly are relics of past ages, most of the other cus- 
toms of which we have long since discarded with con- 
tempt. Oh, if man only had the courage of his con- 
victions and cared nothing for mass psychology. — 
Well, I must go. Good night." 

"Good night," responded Dr. Austin, as he warmly 
clasped the hand of his friend. 



208 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter XII. 

DR. AUSTIN made it a point, so far as possible, 
to make his calls on Hamilton in the eve- 
nings, for two reasons, first because Hamil- 
ton's school hours were over and secondly because he, 
himself, was through with his own busy day, divided 
between his office and his rounds of the city hospitals 
and the homes of such few patients as he visited. On 
these occasions he felt free to remain, after going over 
Hamilton's case in its developments since his last 
visit, and have a pleasant visit with his niece. The 
subject of their conversations had now drifted quite 
exclusively to Hamilton's case, and to that great mine 
of psychology and religion which had been opened up 
by his revival experience. 

It was now half-past seven, Mrs. Wheeler, who 
was a methodical and painstaking housekeeper, had 
just finished washing the dinner dishes when the door 
bell rang, and Dr. Austin was most cordially received. 
After making his usual observation of the present 
status of Hamilton's case, the Doctor patted him on 
the back affectionately and gave him encouragement 
and congratulations on his devoted and intelligent 
carrying out of his instructions, and on the improve- 
ment he had made. Turning now to Mrs. Wheeler he 
remarked: "Now to resume our little talk on the 
mind. 

"I wish I could tell you what you need to know 

207 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

direct, and without any preliminary data, yet without 
such preliminary knowledge on your part I will have 
to give you a sort of a lecture leading up to what I 
would have you know. 

"The faculty called the attention which is a focus 
of consciousness on a particular object or subject, 
as a mental element, is practically incapable of par- 
tition. The higher the integrity of its unity, the more 
normal and perfect is its performance. Conversely, 
to the extent of its division or cleavage, and to the 
extent that it may become broken and dismembered, 
is it correspondingly functionally incapacitated. Dis- 
traction and confusion of the attention involves a cor- 
responding clouding of the whole mental process. 
The attention, both objective and subjective, is the 
normal center of mental convergence and unification, 
and to the extent that one constituent element 
of a partitioned attention is strong, the other is cor- 
respondingly weak. When we speak of concentra- 
tion of the mind as an intellectual requisite, we mean a 
unified and undivided attention. Holding the atten- 
tion to one object or subject, is holding the focused 
conscious mind to it. All mental diversions and di- 
gressions are of serious import, for the reason that 
they divert from the original object or subject to the 
extent that they bestow the attention upon the object or 
subject of the digressions. Absentmindedness implies 
a misapplication of the attention. 

"The maintenance of the mental focus which we term 

208 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

the attention depends upon the strength and physical 
capacity exhibited in sustained applications to single 
goals, which are always fatiguing. The result of fa- 
tigue is exhibited in loss of unity and of focusing ca- 
pacity. The fatigue of the attention entails fatigue 
products just as much as muscular strain. Much eva- 
sion of reason entailing sustained deliberation, espe- 
cially on problems at all abstruse, is due to weakness 
and unendurance for sustained attention. The stress 
of focus bears direct relation to the number of con- 
stituent representations. Thus the fuller and higher 
the consciousness, the greater the strain, and the less 
able is a weak individual to endure it. Conversely, 
the subnormal fugitive egoes are enabled to focus only 
when the representation is small, for the same reason." 
"The attention may be occupied by either external 
or internal ideas, it may be attracted or directed by 
current sense impressions or memories of past expe- 
riences. All mental acts normally bring current sense 
impressions and memories of past impressions into 
joint associations, but if absolute unity prevails, but 
one object or subject of the attention is involved at 
any one time. If all the collective interacting consti- 
tuent representations of the functional concert, the 
composite mental product, is limited to a single theme, 
the highest result is obtained. Singleness of the at- 
tention, and therefore of consciousness, is a virtue, 
and its division is a vice. The greatest vice, however, 
is that in which the attention is occasionally occupied 
by subconscious ideas, subnormally, which, owing to 

209 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

their weakness, never come into the higher resist- 
ances of full conscious associations with the stronger 
representations, wherein the degree of representation, 
in all conscious deliberations, depends upon and is 
consonant with the strength of their dynamic reaction 
force. 

"If we deduce that the dynamic force of a sense per- 
ception is in direct ratio with the molecular distur- 
bance of equilibrium involved in its original reception 
impress, we may deduce that the subsequent repeti- 
tions of its reactions will be in proportion to the orig- 
inal ratio, and thus that their representation in all 
subsequent collective mental functions will bear a 
definite relation to such intrinsic dynamic status, and 
maintain an order in attainment of such representation 
in competition with the relative dynamic forces of 
other representations in the full conscious mental con- 
cert. 

"We do, however, find by observation, as excep- 
tions to the laws just mentioned, that stronger rep- 
resentations of many mental associations in our com- 
posite mental processes may be inhibited by trauma- 
tisms, fatigue, and accidental and artificial abnormali- 
ties, and natural ones such as in dreams, when an 
abeyance of dominant representations gives place to 
weaker ones, some of which may never before have 
attained to occupation of the attention and conscious- 
ness, and never could in collaboration with the strong- 
er representatives which participate in and dominate 
attention of full consciousness. I have already ex- 
210 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

plained to you how weak subconscious representations 
assert themselves, such as in planchette writing, with- 
out directly occupying the attention. 

"The conscious mind, of many psychologists, or full 
consciousness, is the sum of that which occupies the 
attention. Whatever occupies an individual's atten- 
tion, he is self-conscious of it as the subject of his 
thought. The 'conscious mind' is of necessity the 
dominant and prevailing subject of mental occupation. 
We have observed that a fundamental law of mental 
function is singleness of mental occupation, i.e., one 
subject of the attention, and if conscious thought oc- 
cupies its place at a unit time to the exclusion of oth- 
ers, in inverse ratio, and to the extent that the at- 
tention or consciousness is dominantly occupied with 
one subject or object of its occupation, others are 
correspondingly reduced to minor or subconscious 
values. 

"Conversely, occasionally, elements or factors of 
the aggregate which we call the mind, which have 
been minor members of the total concert, become 
majority members. In other words, on occasions 
when the majority members are temporarily absent, 
the minority ones come to the surface, dominate con- 
sciousness, and occupy the attention, and thus the 
subconscious elements attain to the superconscious, 
wherein they attain the dominant role, and constitute 
a fugitive ego. 

"Among mental elements which are usually in the 

211 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

subconscious class, may be mentioned, respectively, 
the forces of hereditary instinct, habits, addictions, 
automatism of action, memory, etc., which exercise 
continuous influence upon all of our conscious 
thoughts and acts, without per se dominating the at- 
tention, or becoming the subject of our thoughts. 

"These are truly subconscious elements of the men- 
tal function in their normal relations. We are more 
or less governed in all our thoughts and actions by 
these factors, which do not rise to the surface or be- 
come impressed upon the attention to the extent of a 
consciousness of their existence. We may, however, 
by analytical introspection dissect out these elements 
and thus bring them to our cognition. 

"When an individual becomes mentally unbalanced, 
a previously dormant latent instinct may, and not 
infrequently does, dominate and find expression, as 
an abnormal impelling impulse, passion, or fanaticism. 

"When certain elements of the higher and fuller 
mental concert are absent or suspended, as in sleep, 
deliriums, etc., normally subconscious elements come 
to the surface, so to speak, and dominate a subcon- 
scious mind, or wholly constitute an incomplete and 
subconscious mentality. Memories which have for 
many years been dominated over and been subservient 
to stronger engrams, not infrequently come to the 
surface and occupy the attention, when the attention 
ceases to be occupied by the stronger impressions of 
former environmental attractions. 

212 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Occupation of a mind by objects, requiring the 
physical stress of sustained attention, is far more 
fatiguing than by subjects of independent thought. 
Thus spontaneous diversions of weak mentality and 
overwork change the objective to the subjective. 
Wandering minds and fugitive thoughts are subjec- 
tive, rather than objective; yet sustained thought of 
abstract reasoning is just as fatiguing as objective 
mentality, equally prolonged. 

"The terms conscious mind and subconscious mind, 
and the subjective mind and the objective mind, do 
not appeal to me as well founded scientifically. Pri- 
marily, they give them the tenor of entities, as much 
as descriptive characters. Secondarily, the mental 
states are often personified. But another step then 
remains to deify them. Those pseudo-scientists who 
find satisfaction in characterizing themselves as New 
Thoughters and 'Christian Scientists," deify the men- 
tal function in dubbing it 'Divine Mind/ and as one 
with an infinite mind which cannot be an animal 
mental function. 

"There is no warranted occasion for expressing the 
minor mental elements as the subconscious mind when 
a fugitive ego is meant, and in fact the major ele- 
ments dominating the attention do not find an equiva- 
lent compatible term as the conscious mind. A con- 
scious mind should be universally the equivalent of a 
conscious person, which would imply a full concert 
of the interaction of all of the elements of full con- 



213 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

sciousness, and yet by the term subconscious mind 
is not necessarily meant a subconscious individual or 
personality, but one dominated by a fugitive ego. 

"There is also no legitimate occasion to term a mind 
occupied with a subject a subjective mind, or one 
occupied with an object an objective mind. The ten- 
dency is here to throw the typical features upon the 
personified mind, rather than upon the type of its 
function, i. e., the verb is preferable to the noun, and 
objective and subjective mentality would be far more 
correct and appropriate. Misleading terms are al- 
ways to be avoided in scientific nomenclature. 

"The occasional functional dominance of a sub- 
conscious group constituting a fugitive ego during 
periods when the full consciousness is not manifest, 
appears to be due to a temporary release from the 
normal inter-current stress incident to the interaction 
of the full mental concert. The greater the number 
of inter-reacting representations co-operating in any 
functional concert, the greater is the mutual interact- 
ing stress, and in all forms of reduction of the aggre- 
gate of such representations, the lower is the inter- 
current stress of their reaction. 

"Sense impressions, so faint or low in dynamic 
force that they fail to dominate consciousness against 
the stress of a full concert of representations, easily 
dominate the attention when the stress is reduced by 
a sufficiently low representation. In the semi-con- 
scious state of hypnotic and natural sleep and in delir- 

214 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ium, the dominant consciousness is not the same as 
that of the waking state. Sense traumatisms exert 
a similar action on consciousness, suspending or in- 
hibiting representations by tetanies or whatnot, thus 
producing a subconscious state. Amnesia is a state 
of subconsciousness, exhibiting a well defined absence 
of definite fractional representations of the mental 
concert. 

"Weak sense impressions, which have never occu- 
pied the attention of a person, are unknown to that 
person however long they may have been carried at 
subconscious levels, and therefore are not so recog- 
nized at any later date when they arise to the dig- 
nity of occupation of the attention. Thus it is that 
whenever subconscious concepts thus first attain the 
attention, they are often interpreted as supernatural 
visions, inspirations, or supernatural communications, 
rather than memories. 

"You will note in connection with what I am about 
to tell you, that unity is the essential fundamental char- 
acter of the normal mind. There must be a unity of 
the several elements of consciousness, unity of the 
elemental factors of ideas and of thought, and another 
unity is involved in a necessary continuity of thought. 
All these are essential to normal mentality. Con- 
versely, if we suffer a disintegration of disassocia- 
tion of any of these unities, we suffer a corresponding 
abnormality. 

"As I have already explained and illustrated to you, 

215 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

we have morbid states of consciousness which are but 
cleavage fractions of larger and whole ones which 
have been rent asunder, and separate expressions of 
the two or more cleavage products which destroy the 
unity and single personal identity and character of an 
individual. As we have observed, one conscious ele- 
ment may even communicate with the other, and thus 
the fully normal conscious self will regard its fugitive 
subconscious ego as some supernatural manifestation 
of a God, a disembodied Spirit, etc. Another form 
is mental dissociation, in which is inhibited a normal 
association and co-ordination of ideas. Instances of 
forcible impression of false perceptions and irrational 
ideas that are impossible of coherence and co-ordina- 
tion with the person's everyday experience, and of 
adaptation to his own environment, are types. Here 
confusion of perceptions and incoherence of ideas 
mentally disqualify the victim. Yet another type of 
mental disarticulation is that of discontinuity of 
thought, as exhibited by desultoriness, and a substitu- 
tion of fugitive and segregated, for a connected con- 
secutive series of thoughts. 

"I would emphasize the importance of your recog- 
nizing that the same laws that apply to matter in 
general, apply equally to the. mind. The higher the 
degree of integration and integrity of its unification, 
the more normal it is, and conversely, the extent of 
abnormality always corresponds to its degree of disin- 
tegration. The reason of this is that the mind is noth- 

216 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ing more or less than a functional product of the ma- 
terial tissues of the animal body, and, as I am con- 
vinced, its unity and typical characters are dependent 
upon and directly correspond to the existing integrity 
and density of the collective tissues which give it 
birth. I feel profoundly that not until the world rec- 
ognizes these facts in both prevention and treatment 
of mental ailments, will morbid psychology and thera- 
peutics attain to the perfection of other sciences." 

"That is most interesting and illuminating," inter- 
posed Mrs. Wheeler. "I have read in magazines of 
double consciousness and plural personalities, but 
none of them that I have seen made a point directly 
of what you do — that the normal unity of the single 
personality of the individual is broken, dismembered, 
or segregated, although that is obviously the case. It 
seems most important, as you emphasize, that all these 
forms of abnormal mentality are likewise forms of 
broken unity." 

"Yes/ continued Dr. Austin, "but I must greatlj 
elaborate it if you are to obtain a complete mental pic- 
ture of the subject, and even go outside of cases di- 
rectly connected with causative factors of strictly re- 
ligious nature. Therefore please do not regard appar- 
ent diversions as actual digressions. 

"There is a definite and typical mental state and 
personality which is characterized by the co-existence 
and influence of a super-sensitiveness (hyperesthesia) 
of the special senses, as hearing, vision, smell, taste, 

217 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

and feeling, and a general manifestation of super- im- 
pressionability, super-suggestibility, hyper-credulity, 
and super-plasticity; by emotional instability, unscru- 
pulousness, moral weakness, cowardice, and by crim- 
inal predisposition or tendencies. 

"This type also presents a physical status which ap- 
proaches, in many respects and in more or less degree, 
one known as amnesia, in which, in some of its various 
phases, one or other groups of the elements of a full 
representation of consciousness are in temporary or 
permanent abeyance. 

"Amnesia is producible by the shock of violent and 
injurious sense traumatisms in normal individuals, and 
by lesser factors in the hyperesthetic types, who expe- 
rience kindred mental dissociations often from trivial 
or no apparent provocations. Amnesia is also pro- 
ducible artificially by hypnotism, to which the hyper- 
esthetic individual is a predisposed subject. In re- 
vival, and all other types of crowd psychology, we find 
conditions of mental dissociations, akin to certain types 
of amnesia, in which the grouped elements of con- 
sciousness are so incomplete that a fugitive ego domi- 
nates the personality, in the absence of the association 
of a fuller representation. 

"Writers on the subject comment that on occasions 
of subordination of the so-called conscious mind, the 
'subconscious mind' which supplants it is of a greatly 
inferior character. That the conscious self is com- 
posed of the higher mental faculties and the subcon- 

218 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

scious self is composed of the inferior and ignoble ones. 
Such statements imply that the mind is divisible into 
two or more fixed sub-groups of superior and inferior 
standards. We, however, have no evidence to that 
effect. The superiority of the fuller group of repre- 
sentation is largely due to its greater completeness, 
whereas the inferiority of incomplete groups is due 
not only to incomplete representation, but as I have 
explained, owing to the lowered resistance of inter- 
action of the inferior and incomplete representation, 
there are representations of sense impressions which 
are so weak that they cannot and may never come into 
the full representation of the full conscious group. 
This alone would account for the superior ethical 
standard, morality, and higher intelligence of the 
former. 

"The myriads of weak perceptions which never 
reach the conscious attention, remain unmodified and 
unqualified by conscious deliberative association of 
ideas, and thus reappear, when at all, devoid of any 
deliberated value. The impressions gained by the 
recital of the words of religious songs, to which I have 
already directed your attention, are a type. They are 
sung thoughtlessly, without deliberation, yet the repe- 
tition of their utterance leaves their impress of sub- 
conscious values. 

"It is quite generally understood that if a direct 
and definite statement be made concerning a person or 
object, it elicits conscious consideration if it occupies 

219 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

the attention. Yet it is often possible to insidiously 
influence a person without making a definite statement 
that fixes the attention or elicits conscious deliberation. 
Such impressions are weak, subconscious, and often 
indirect, yet by frequent repetition they produce a po- 
tent ultimate effect. 

"The insidious process of 'queering' a person by in- 
sinuation, slighting, sneering, contemptuous disregard, 
inferential depreciation, innuendo, indignity, ignoring, 
and other negative acts, rather than positively and 
openly seeking to influence individuals or public opin- 
ion, is a good illustration of the sinister influence of 
subconscious levels of the mind. Individuals so influ- 
enced, thus gain subconsciously, and without a cons- 
cious consideration, fixed ideas and opinions which 
are of controlling potency, yet which if bluntly intro- 
duced in the form of an accusation, would at once 
be subjected to the test of a full conscious considera- 
tion wherein reason would be brought to bear. 

"When a definite defense of an accused individual 
is made to stir to action a full deliberation, any pre- 
conceived subconscious opinion may be quickly swept 
away simply by the bringing to bear upon it the full 
conscious consideration. Often, however, the sub- 
conscious preconceptions cause persons to reject rea- 
son on religious subjects. 

"The individual members of crowds do not give 
conscious consideration to the dynamic forces which 
are current, and which sway the crowd as a whole. 

220 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

The collective psychology of the crowd is composed 
of the subconscious levels of the individual members. 
We are not conscious of the contagion of crowd emo- 
tions, and yet we are swayed by them. We think we 
are the creators of our voluntary acts, when in reality 
we are unconsciously impelled by multitudinous in- 
sidious subconscious impulses. So-called freewill of- 
ferings at revivals and churches are, more often than 
we think, yieldings to impelling emotional sways. 

"Whenever individuals are reduced to automatons 
by disciplinary repression of the normal individual su- 
premacy, and the higher aggregate of consciousness is 
shunted down to subconscious levels, the manifesta- 
tions of the fugitive subsconscious ego only, prevail. 
One of the most prominent attributes to this incom- 
plete consciousness is blindness to sequence. The vic- 
tim neither anticipates the end results of contemplated 
future acts, nor apprehends those of present ones. 
They make good soldiers, for this attainment after pro- 
longed training renders them oblivious of all personal 
danger. They fail to even apprehend the result or 
outcome of their concerted acts. Thus the first law 
of nature, that of self-preservation, is in abeyance, 
subordinated by subconscious automatonization. 

"Probably there is no better illustration of the po- 
tency of influence of a multiplicity of repetition of 
impressions of ideas as subconscious groups, which are 
unrecognized by the conscious attention and unmodi- 
fied by deliberation, than is portrayed in the religious 

221 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

training of young children. During years when they 
are too young to comprehend or mentally weigh the- 
ological doctrines, and in any event with the necessary 
data for such discrimination withheld from them and 
possibly also from their parents and teachers, they 
are brought under the constant influence of an atmos- 
phere which embraces the fundamental and essential 
tenets of the religious doctrine. This is instilled into 
them without their consciousness of it, and thus is im- 
pressed quite entirely in subconscious groups, which 
are manifested only in the religious faith of the con- 
scious attention of the individual. 

"We Protestants see no wrong in this, so far as it 
is circumscribed within the limits of Protestantism, but 
who was not awakened to its fundamental wrong when 
Cardinal Newman proclaimed : 'Give me the children 
of England, and England shall be Roman Catholic'? 
If it is right for us as Protestants to introduce prayers 
and Bible readings in public schools, employ clergy 
with public funds for invocations in representative 
assemblages of State, as chaplains in State and Gov- 
ernment institutions, the Army and Navy, we must con- 
cede the same to the Catholics. If our church prop- 
erty is to escape taxation, so must all Roman Catholic 
property. We must either separate Church and State 
now, or permit all these abuses without a word of 
protest until it is too late to save our country from 
Catholicism. What is fair for one is fair for all. The 
Protestants have already in our country taken the chil- 
dren of our public schools to make America Protest- 
222 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ant. Now we must either discontinue all religious 
exercises in public affairs and institutions, or accord 
the same privilege to the Catholics. It will then be a 
competition to determine which religion can make the 
deepest subconscious impressions, instead of which 
can most powerfully appeal to the intellect. That will 
decide whether our future generations are to be Protes- 
ant or Catholic. It is to be hoped that the present 
safe balance may be maintained by going back to the 
policy of complete separation of Church and State of 
our National Constitution, or better yet, effacing all 
supernaturalism from all religions. Not until then 
will our republic be safe. Not until then will we be 
intellectually unbound. 

"The possibilities of accomplishing great wrongs by 
continuous subconscious impressions upon children, 
who are thus brought up upon conceptions which go to 
them almost wholly as subconscious impressions, when 
they were too young to reason or possess the neces- 
sary data for a basis of discrimination, when data to 
the contrary is even suppressed, as it generally is with 
pupils of religion, yea even with the older students, 
have been well illustrated in Germany. The great bulk 
of the German soldiers of the present war have been 
subconsciously instilled with the glory of the national 
military program from early youth, in the public 
schools and every walk of life. It came as a matter of 
course, never as a subject of debate. If it had, it might 
have had a different outcome. A German boy no more 
questioned the advisability or the desirability of the 

223 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

program, or of the prerogative of the autocracy to make 
it, than a Catholic child questioned the policy of his 
church or the prerogative of the clergy. The devout 
duty to accept and perform, thus dispenses with all 
reason. 

"When we read historical narration of all the blood- 
shed of religious wars, and of all the cruel barbarities, 
murders, and rapine, committed by all Christian fac- 
tions against other factions, both Christian and non- 
Christian, because of a divergence of religious views, 
we think of the supreme selfishness of peoples who 
would be guilty of such crimes simply because of hon- 
est difference of opinion, and that it must be sincerity 
on the part of the masses, or they would not engage 
in mortal combat in behalf of their opinions. We rec- 
ognize also the fanatical interest exhibited by each sect 
and faction in fighting for the ascendancy of their own 
creed and faction. 

"All this is true enough, but what we neglect is 
recognition of the fact that in the psychology of each 
faction was included a wholesome or unwholesome 
fear of the religious hysteria and fanaticism, born of 
subconscious preconceptions, of the opponent factions, 
from which they would consider themselves safe- 
guarded only in the event of the complete subjuga- 
tion, despoilation, and weakening, of the other faction. 
The constant unscrupulous intrigue, subterfuge, and 
connivance for advantage, in time of peace as well 
as of war, by the cunning priestcraft of all factions, led 

224 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

them to continually distrust as well as fear each other. 
Each faction feared first for its own cherished re- 
ligion in the event of conquest. No persecution was 
too brutal and cruel to apply to punish heresy in the 
subjugated by the ascendant faction. When religious 
hysteria and fanaticism are dead, and not till then, will 
man become a truly social and peaceful animal. Not 
until that time will he cease to feel constrained to lie, 
steal, murder, or commit any other crime, either ag- 
gressively or defensively, in behalf of a creed, a church, 
or at the instigation of what he belives to be the divine 
representative of his subconsciously conceived God or 
Savior. The more sincere, devout, and fanatical is he, 
the more dangerous a citizen of any community, for 
such a person, in the conviction that the end justifies 
the means, will stand at nothing in his obsession that 
he will be rewarded in a celestial world for any crime 
or sacrifice committed in this inferior and temporal 
abiding place. All this will be a thing of the past, a 
past which has been full of crime and bloodshed, when- 
ever that future dawns which has been predicted 
by Dr. Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University, when 
religion will be purged of its supernatural element en- 
tirely. We probably shall never live to see that happy 
day, but we can still anticipate it for our successors on 
earth in the ages to be. 

"The religion of the future, the religion of this 
world, minus the mysticism and supernatural elements 
of the outlived religions, will need as many Cooper 
Unions in each city, town, and hamlet, as they now 

225 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

have churches, and as many lecturers, who will be 
instructors as well as moral and ethical teachers and 
leaders, as they now have ministers of the Gospel. 
They will need young men's and young women's as- 
sociations as much as they do now. They will include 
physical with mental culture, and practical with clas- 
sical educational features, just as they do now, but 
they will be universal. No creed as a requisite, or 
heresy as a bar. Sunday, the day of respite from 
daily toil, will find libraries and all innocent amuse- 
ments, as well as such lectures as those of the Cooper 
Union, open all day and evening, and not forty, but 
one hundred per cent of the populace of every com- 
munity will avail itself according to its choice, 
of profitable instruction and enjoyable recreation, and 
will not have to be whipped in by legislative statute. 

'The Divinity schools will evolve into schools of in- 
dividual and international sociology, ethics, morals, 
hygienic living, sanitation, civil government, etc., and 
the existing clergy, forgetting their past cults, sects, 
and creeds, will be absorbed in the great work of the 
new religion of humanity that will be compatible with 
bodily and mental health and happiness, and with God's 
laws certainly, if there be any God back of the laws 
of nature, or if we call natural phenomena God. So- 
cialism and anarchy, then unnecessary, will be swept 
away, as will also strikes and strikers, all of which 
are now born of ignorance, prejudice, misunderstand- 
ings, and lack of social attitude, and ethical knowledge 
and feeling on the part of both opposing elements. 
226 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"No longer will ignorance of hygienic living and 
causes of physical and mental abnormalities be respon- 
sible for millions of persons blindly making of them- 
selves physical and mental derelicts, as occurs today, 
and no longer will itinerant theologic jumping jacks go 
about the country winning fabulous fortunes for them- 
selves by emotionally stampeding weak mentalities into 
otherwise empty pews and insane asylums. 

"No longer will a large percent of the people be- 
come coincidently hyperesthetics and anti-social beasts 
through ignorance of correct living, and when that 
day comes, I can assure you that economic strife 
between men will come to an end. When all are 
healthy minded we will not only have just laws, but 
universal education will cause all to so recognize and 
respect them as such. Even married couples will be- 
come so reconciled that the divorce problem will be 
thereby solved. 

"People will be at last taught that our bodies, our 
families, our homes, our communities, our states, our 
nations, our world, are all worth while. None of 
them must be sacrificed in behalf of any post-mortem 
celestial world of which we know nothing authentic, 
and of which we can learn nothing other than by 
the illusions, hallucinations, and delusions of morbid 
emotions. 

"International contentions, jealousies, hatreds, and 
wars, will disappear, and all men will be able to say 
with the father of American independence: 'The 
world is my country, and to do good my religion.' " 

227 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Dr. Austin, always reserved and contained, had 
never as now, in the memory of Mrs. Wheeler, given 
expression to his personal views on strictly religious 
subjects. Gradually, however, his ideas on related and 
allied subjects had been imparted to his niece, until by 
collating the fragments of his isolated mentions and 
references, one could not be mistaken as to his gen- 
eral dissatisfaction with what he had come to regard 
as the religion of persons with whom he came in con- 
tact. On this occasion he appeared to be wound up, 
as it were. He was profoundly in earnest, and spoke 
with considerable depth of feeling as he proceeded 
. to give expression to what had long occupied his 
thoughts. He continued: "I long for the time when 
man will become familiar with universal laws, natural 
or divine, which he will recognize are inflexible, are 
never changed or deviated from by any deity, through 
any appeals to caprice, through vacillations of fickle 
fancies, and which grant no special privileges or un- 
equal opportunities, as in Tammany politics, but are 
laws which operate so automatically that everyone 
must reap exactly what he sows. 

"I long for the time when man will expend as much 
time, energy, and money in learning the natural laws 
under which he lives, and how to conform to and 
adapt himself to his law-controlled environment as he 
now wastes on modern survivals of ancient religions. 
Such an adaptation is the greatest problem man has 
yet to solve. The solution will cover all problems 
of life. 
228 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"I long for the time when such pernicious doctrines 
will be no longer taught, as that a Supreme Being 
first created, and then premeditated, preordained, and 
determined the future eventful destiny of the Uni- 
verse, including the barbarities of all wars, crimes, 
vices, etc., thus leaving all human actors innocent in- 
struments of one colossal divine tragedy, and even 
foretold by God to man through inspired Jewish 
prophets. 

"I long for a true religion, which shall be free from 
a corrupt, vicious, and bloody history, one that will be 
health inspiring instead of disease producing, one that 
will be without deviation from that infinite and eternal 
natural law that regulates everything in and event of 
the universe, the penalty of the transgression from 
which there can be no escape, and in the enforcement 
of which there shall be no belief in fear or favor 
through the medium of heresy, creed, or priest. 

"I long for the time to come when all religions will 
be purged of the vicious teachings that believers in a 
particular creed, god, savior, a theory or formula of 
salvation can safely transgress and evade, or be saved 
from the operation of this divine law, or be in any way 
shielded from the inevitable consequences of their acts. 
I recoil at the dogma that any one is less wicked or 
less deserving of the penalty involved in the natural 
operation of the law, by virtue of a belief in any dei- 
fied savior, or that any indictment against a sinner 
will be quashed by prayer, praise, flattery, oratory, pe- 

229 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

titions, entreaties, personal solicitations, by priestly 
intercessions, mass celebrations, by emotional sprees, 
by vicarious or other atonements, by repentance, 
lamentations, penance or a pseudo-scientific mental at- 
titude. 

"Such teachings as these are what destroy religions 
as moral forces, and invite transgressions of natural 
laws, the operations of which are anticipated to be so 
easily annulled by the chosen few who subordinate 
themselves financially, mentally, and physically to the 
Church." 

Dr. Austin looked thoughtfully at his niece for a 
few moments, then rising and picking up his hat, said 
he must do an errand on the way home. He kissed 
Mrs. Wheeler an affectionate good night, and was soon 
in his cabriolet on his way down-town. 



230 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter XIII. 

ON THE last occasion of a call upon Dr. Austin 
by Dr. McLean, the subject of the conversa- 
sation had been Hamilton Wheeler's interest- 
ing case and the underlying conditions, so the continu- 
ation of that theme was made the occasion of another 
discussion between these two physicians, by appoint- 
ment, at Dr. Austin's office. 

As soon as Dr. McLean arrived, and the two old 
friends were comfortably seated and the customary 
pleasantries had been exchanged Dr. McLean re- 
marked : "I feel somewhat unsteady today, in fact I feel 
as though I might have been through the mill of a 
revival conversion myself, and were just now beginning 
to suffer the effects." 

"I have never forgotten," remarked Dr. Austin, 
"that Dr. Fere, of Paris, in his 'Pathology of the Emo- 
tions' (262) stated: 'A violent emotion is capable of 
evoking, just like a traumatic shock or an acute illness, 
a drunken delirium in an individual subject to alcoholic 
intoxication.' 

"The craving for alcoholic liquors following strong 
emotions is well exemplified in the prompt occupation, 
concurrent with the opening of the revival, of all the 
previously empty storerooms in the vicinity of the 
Tabernacle entrance by saloons, and the expressed in- 
tention of some of the proprietors to follow the evange- 



231 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

list about the country on account of the prosperity he 
brings to their business. It is readily conceived that 
any attraction of such crowds would bring many dry 
throats there, yet as you know this delirium is recog- 
nized by other authorities, as well as Fere, as developed 
by strong emotions from any cause. Moreover, patho- 
logic emotions are morbid exaggerations of what nor- 
mally are the preambles to every act, and thus rash 
acts in general may be expected to result from such 
morbid exaggerations. 

"It is remarkable, when one stops to think of it, 
that alcohol has played so important a role in the his- 
tory of all religions, and especially in our own Chris- 
tian religion. For example, the miraculous creation 
of wine in abundance for the wedding feast by Christ 
Jesus, the excesses of the Agapae of the early Chris- 
tians, the consecration of wine as the holy blood symbol 
of the holy communion, the free use of intoxicants by 
all the early priests and monks, by Luther, Calvin, and 
others, and the long reticence of the church organiza- 
tions to condemn it, until our American medical pro- 
fession conducted its campaign of education on the 
subject of the destructive effects of alcohol. All these 
imply a sanction on the part of the Church. 

"Whenever emotional victims of revivals once find 
they can renew their ecstacies with alcohol or nar- 
cotic drugs, they are predisposed to both addiction and 
inebriety,which are relative to the neurosis thus at- 
tained. 



232 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"With ecstacy, sensation is suspended or extin- 
guished. Ecstatic visions, hallucinations, and convul- 
sions, are but part of the morbid train of events, and 
incoordinate utterances of ecstacy constitute the char- 
acteristic sacred 'confusion of tongues.' Rapid and 
irregular pulse, twitchings, convulsions, and tetanic 
spasms, violent contortions, jerkings, shakings, jump- 
ing, shouting, and finally insanity, constitute the pave- 
ment of the downward road. 

"Wherever one goes, the most loquacious, adventur- 
ous, and emotional individuals will be found as claim- 
ants for office in political, economic, and industrial or- 
ganizations. They operate by bellicose methods, by 
threats, intimidations, coercions, and often resort to 
violence, to attain their supremacy. They appeal to 
the emotions and passions, never to reason. They de- 
pend upon multiple repetition of emphatic affirmation. 
They produce convictions, and subsequent emotional 
feelings, by emphasis and repetition of affirmation 
alone, never by argument. They have no tolerance for 
oppositional argument. All opposition is put down by 
the might or the violence of the emotional and fanati- 
cal element. They are not only demagogues, but para- 
sites on society. They impose even more upon the 
labor classes, whom they line up and hold in subjec- 
tion to tribute by coercion and violence, than upon the 
employers who also have to pay them tribute or fare 
worse by contending with framed-up strikes. The 
emotional basis and its causes are the necessary incite- 
ment to this state of affairs. Without it, it could 
not exist. 233 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"The alcoholic excesses of bygone days have played 
their part, and a great part, in the production of the 
physical basis of emotionalism, but now since our own 
medical profession has carried on its campaign of edu- 
cation, which has so clearly shown the destroying ef- 
fects upon both body and mind, and employers are 
more and more universally demanding not only tem- 
perance, but total abstinence, on the part of all em- 
ployees in positions of trust and responsibility, that ele- 
ment is being gradually but surely eliminated. Having 
thus rid society of this physical basis of emotionalism, 
but one thing remains to bring man into his own : the 
elimination of the sensorial causes. I say sensorial ad- 
visedly, for it is to the senses, not the intellect, to which 
religion appeals. I am sure you will bear me out that 
evangelistic religion so acts, and that it seeks, as the 
most essential part of its propaganda, to foster emo- 
tionalism through the senses at the expense of intellec- 
tion." 

While Dr. Austin was speaking, Dr. McLean took 
a book from one of the book cases of Dr. Austin's 
library, and turning over its pages, as he resumed his 
chair, he observed : "I have here a copy of 'The Path- 
ology of Mind' by Dr. Henry Maudsley, the eminent 
English psychiatist, who died a few years ago. 

"In reference to one of the effects of religion in 
the causation of insanity, I will read from page 139 
of this American reprint. Observe its significance : 'A 
belief which is the prohibition of intelligent inquiry 

234 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

and fatal to an independent human bearing will not 
help but hinder intellectual development, will not 
strengthen but weaken moral character. By holding 
notions which are not founded on reason and cannot 
be reasoned about, inasmuch as they are assumed to 
transcend or may actually contradict reason, as a part 
of the common stock of its belief, the mind goes counter 
to the very principles of its intellectual being, under- 
mines its own foundations, proceeds with a fundamen- 
tal inconsistency declaring itself in every phase of its 
growth. What wonder that with the way so prepared 
and made ready it accepts with ease, when illness 
comes, extravagant delusions that are utterly contrary 
to reason.' " 

Dr. McLean paused, and turning over a few pages, 
he resumed : "Again on page 147 Dr. Maudsley wrote : 
'Any sect which fosters habitual emotional excitement, 
or lends its authority to extraordinary displays thereof, 
will favour the production of instability of mind and so 
predispose to the easy overthrow of its balance'." 

As he closed the book, Dr. McLean remarked: "I 
regret that he did not say anything about the ultra- 
violent evangelists of our day who actually produce 
sense traumatism, as well as emotion, and violate the 
reasoning function. No well-informed physician can 
honestly controvert Dr. Maudsley's statements which 
I just read to you. In our day he would have men- 
tioned the traumatism of the organs of hearing arising 
from the evangelist's deafening shouting, thunderous 

235 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

and ear-splitting yelling, fatigue, exhaustion of vision 
and the attention, from following him in his wild and 
acrobatic gesticulations and feats of agility. The gen- 
eral obscurantism of mysticism and religion, with its 
mental bewilderments and distractions, which are now 
so well recognized as pathogenic factors, were not 
elucidated in Dr. Maudsley's time as they are now. 
The same might be said of the high degree of hysteri- 
cal contagion emanating and passing from the evange- 
list to the crowd." 

Dr. Austin fully endorsed all Dr. Maudsley had writ- 
ten and Dr. McLean's comments, then observed : "An- 
other typical feature exhibited by the present evange- 
list, that has impressed me, was the attitude of a slave 
driver, and as exhibited, not only toward his auditors, 
but to all his cooperating force. Insolent rebukes, hos- 
tile criticisms, despotic orders, and withering intimida- 
tions, were hurled indiscriminately at both audience 
and helpers. That, however, is but a single one to be 
reckoned with the other factors that go to make up 
the morbid whole. His barroom vulgarity, sensual in- 
sinuations, rude jokes, and blasphemies, shock all re- 
fined sensibilities of those who have been brought up 
in homes of culture, regardless of religious teaching."* 

"Speaking of barrooms," interjected Dr. McLean, 
"reminds me that I have often thought of the morbid 
procedure involved in sudden or revival conversions, 
which is closely allied to that of acute alcoholism, so 
much so that the priests of antiquity used alcoholic 
*See Appendix D. 
236 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

drinks as well as preparations of narcotic herbs to pro- 
mote their sacred ecstacies and visions. In the words of 
Professor Leuba: 'Blessed are the intoxicated, for to 
them the kingdom of spirits is revealed!' 

"In both religious and alcoholic intoxications, the 
primary emotions give way to a sense of buoyancy, 
well being, of freedom from care, and some degree of 
exhilaration. These merge into a state of light-heart- 
edness and happiness. Later, the subject becomes 
irritable, and the higher moral feelings are suspended. 
Modesty and shame disappear, the accelerated sexual- 
emotions dominate, and excesses follow." 

Now walking over to a section of a bookcase that 
extended to every wall space in the room, Dr. Austin 
took out a small blue volume, and resuming his chair, 
interrogated Dr. McLean on Dr. Boris Sidis' work 
"The Psychology of Suggestion." "Do you recall the 
brave expression of his convictions by President Jordan 
of Leland Stanford, Jr. University a few years ago? 
Dr. Sidis reviews it on pages 359 and 360. It is worth 
repetition at this time when it becomes so applicable. 
Dr. Jordan is quoted : 'Whiskey, cocaine, and alcohol 
bring temporary insanity, and so does a revival of re- 
ligion — one of those religious revivals in which men lose 
their reason and self-control. This is simply a form of 
drunkenness no more worthy of respect than the drunk- 
enness that lies in the gutter/ Following this Dr. Sidis 
comments : 'Prof. Jordan was attacked on all sides by 
the small fry of the pulpits. But Prof. Jordan was, in 

237 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

fact, too mild in his expression. Religious revivalism 
is a social bane, it is far more dangerous to the life of 
society than drunkenness. As a sot, man falls below 
the brute ; as a revivalist, he sinks lower than the sot.' " 

"Well," remarked Dr. McLean, "that is both true 
and well expressed, but I wonder what Dr. Jordan 
thinks of Billy Sunday's reported statement in substance 
that 'when the consensus of the latest scholarship says 
one thing and the Bible says another, the latest scholar- 
ship can go to hell.' What does Dr. Jordan think of 
Sunday's reported expression of depreciation of ethics 
— that one can 'starve to death and go to hell on high 
gear on this ethical stuff?' Just think, we now, appar- 
ently have religion entirely separate from good works." 

Dr. Austin looked thoughtfully for a moment and 
then remarked: "It is rather difficult to compare the 
deleterious consequences of these so supposedly unlike 
factors, but I have no doubt that they are nearly equal 
as causes of insanity. Alcohol affects the body pri- 
marily and the mental function secondarily, whereas 
religion affects the mind directly, distracting and de- 
ranging it. 

"I have long studied the pathogenic effect of what 
is now called religious obscurantism, a term which to 
my mind is inadequate to compass the group of factors 
that are supposed to be embraced under that caption. 
The mental derangement caused by obfuscation, be- 
wilderment, and defeats of coherence and co-ordina- 
tion, which is caused by mental baffling and chaotic 

238 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

literature, and which is insisted upon as mental food for 
the express purpose of mystifying, confounding, and 
confusing the mind, should not be ah unexpected out- 
come. Yet if we, as a profession, do not have the cour- 
age to inform the public now, we will soon be the 
subjects of blame which will be more serious than 
any professional prestige possibly lost then by whole- 
sale deflections to faith-healing cults, had we the cour- 
age to warn the public of it years ago." 

Dr. McLean expressed his approbation of Dr. Aus- 
tin's views, and added : "I regard sanity as a state of 
successful adaptation to and adaptability with environ- 
ment, and not less so with fact. Divorce the basis 
of fact and the perception of things as they are, and 
you deliberately foster mental unbalance and insanity. 
Normality involves adaptation to the natural, while ab- 
normality seeks and clings to the mysterious and super- 
natural. As soon as a man loses his bearings, his co- 
ordination becomes impossible and he is gone daft. It 
is not only man's duty to be true to knowledge, what- 
ever it refutes, but it is necessary for his mental health. 
The beginning of all these unbalanced states is char- 
acterized by obsessions which are contrary to the obvi- 
ous truths which they stifle. When false obsessions con- 
tinue unabated progressive mental deterioration is. in- 
evitable. With falsification of our senses, the inevitable 
course of our reason is always dangerous. Uncon- 
trolled imagination and love of illusion go hand in hand 
Delusion is its ultimate goal. If you artificially induce 
religious intolerance, you will always have political, 

239 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

racial, and social intolerance to cope with. Civil strife 
and wars will result. Develop a fanatic in connection 
with, or in the name of religion, and you have an indi- 
vidual who is fanatical in every walk of life. Fanati- 
cism is a degree of insanity. 

"When we destroy that which is necessary to reason, 
we eliminate that which is necessary to make a reason- 
able fellow citizen or a good wife or husband. With 
reasonableness, anyone is dependable, without it he 
is impossible. A combination of a good disposition 
and unreasonableness in the same person is impossible. 
You can't keep a mass of people mentally degraded and 
expect of them intelligent decisions when economic and 
political problems come up for solution. Crazy theories 
will result from defective mental operations. There is 
but one right side to every question. When both sides 
are healthy minded, the problem is more than half 
solved in advance. Fairness most always comes from 
the capacity to consider on its own merits the view- 
point of the opponent. It requires reason to regard 
fairly the standpoint of another who entertains an op- 
posite view on any subject. 

"Foster supernaturalism in mode of thought, and 
you simultaneously foster obliviousness to the majesty 
of material fact. Sufficiently inculcate belief in the un- 
real, and you correspondingly destroy the individual's 
natural adaptability to the real. Teach that the tangible 
is the intangible, and you have abolished differentiation. 
Crush individual initiativeness of thought with relig- 

240 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

ious fear, and your victim will lack initiation in thought 
other than religious. Persecute honest individual opin- 
ion, and you will foster weakness of independent 
thought. Man must progress, even the religious ; those 
who do not progress must become victims of the evolu- 
tionary law of the elimination of the unfit. The re- 
ligion does not save. 

"Have we not observed the gradual elimination from 
Europe of the fanatical Turk ? What about the ethics 
of some European Christian nations who are his allies 
and partners in crime ? Is it not now the essential duty 
of modern civilization to shatter some divine rights of 
despots in order to rescue ourselves from their depre- 
dations ? 

"When we consider how religion has fostered false 
perception and conception, emotionalism, hysteria, 
fanaticism, and eroticism, should we be surprised at 
its history of horrors, its frightful inquisitions, massa- 
cres, burnings, brutal murders, inhuman tortures, cru- 
sades, and wars ? Must history continue to repeat itself 
before we wake up?" 

"I hope not," remarked Dr. Austin, and he con- 
tinued : "As I have expressed to Mrs. Wheeler, all the 
higher and nobler mental attainments are dependent 
upon what we call mental elaboration. Sustained and 
complex deliberations are necessary to mature judg- 
ment, and therefore to good thoughts and acts. Ethical 
and moral individuals of character and stamina are sel- 
dom found among emotional derelicts at any time, and 

241 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

moreover unduly exercising and exciting the emotions 
always increases the delinquency and does not make 
better citizens of them. Even if they are temporarily 
sustained by suggestion, whenever they are placed on 
their own responsibility their uncontrollable emotions 
may at any time get the better of them. Political and 
industrial disturbances may at any time carry them off 
their feet, resulting in criminal and vicious acts. But 
a step farther and they attain to. the criminal insane 
stage. 

"The very height of folly was the religious emo- 
tional stampede of the industrial town of Paterson, 
New Jersey, already noted for its emotional criminal 
outbursts. I expect to see that bear fruit in equally 
great industrial demonstrations. 

"Some apologists may hold that one type of criminal 
is typically characterized by emotional deterioration. 
That is partially true, but it must not be forgotten that 
the criminal status is commonly the outcome of an 
earlier emotional overexertion, of fatigue, and also 
of overt and rash acts, as indulgence in vices and com- 
missions of crime. Progressive deteriorations of the 
mind, as we all know, are characterized by mania in 
the earlier stages and by dementia in the later ones. 

"The young multi-millionaire, who recently was face 
to face with hordes of distracted strikers in Colorado, 
is indeed misguided if he thinks that an investment in 
wholesale evangelical emotionalism will render the 
masses quiet, poised, humble, meek, docile, or obedient, 
or proof against future emotional agitation. 
242 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Teach people to trust and obey the emotions, and 
to overexercise the emotions, evangelically, and you 
have prepared and opened the way for that type of 
economic disturbance which is characterized by fanat- 
ical manifestations, and I need hardly add that such as 
these are accompanied with destruction of property 
and bloodshed. Crowd emotion is at the bottom of all 
riots. 

"Emotionalism does not foster good citizenship, and 
suppression of deliberation and enfeeblement of the 
volition and moral restraint, do not promote legal re- 
sponsibility and moral stamina. The psychology of the 
crowd is the psychology of the mob and the riot. If 
you ever witnessed a riot, with all its fanaticism, you 
would appreciate the truth of what I say. 

"Blind faith in dogma is a fixed idea, an obsession 
supplanting a process of reason. A man who reasons 
is always a safe and sane citizen. This negatively sup- 
ports Kant's dictum that 'the death of dogma is the 
birth of morals.' A reasonable man is generally a mor- 
ally responsible one, but, as George Eliot has written : 
"If you feel no motive to common morality but a crim- 
inal bar in Heaven, you are decidedly a man for the 
police on earth to keep their eyes upon.' " 

"Those are good ones," commented Dr. McLean, 
and continuing, he said : "Regarding the emotions, it 
has often occurred to me that a normal man distrusts 
his emotions and holds them in abeyance pending delib- 
eration upon the relationships of his past experience. 

243 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

The strong man ordinarily has control over the emo- 
tions; weak men, women, and children are lacking in 
such control. The dire effect of evangelistic violence 
increases that lack of control most in those who ex- 
hibit the least margin of safety. Defective and delin- 
quent children, who are most amenable to super-emo- 
tionalism, are already deficient in control of the emo- 
tions and thus are most prone to complete breakdowns 
of moral stamina. 

"I feel sure the people of our country would never 
permit themselves to participate in revivals if they 
knew the terrible price the country has to pay in in- 
tellectual deterioration and in taxes for institutional 
custody and treatment of those who become tempor- 
arily or permanently unbalanced by these purposely in- 
duced and highly impassioned emotional excitements. 

"It is poor solace, even, to be reminded that some 
of these superinduced cases are merely reproductions 
of old derangements, which perhaps have previously 
undergone treatment had been discharged, or were 
already predisposed and easy subjects. It only proves 
it to be a case of the superimposition of exciting 
causes upon predisposing ones, and that both are 
morbid factors which should be safeguarded. One 
might as well condone the intoxication by alcohol or 
the inebriation of narcotic drugs in those predisposed 
to them, yet conversely, we especially prohibit their 
sale to confirmed inebriates, to the feebleminded, and 
to minors. The same should be the case with evan- 
gelical religion. 
244 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"All hereditary and innate criminals are super-emo- 
tional, which explains in part why they are so simul- 
taneously religious. The religion with them is not 
hypocrisy by any means. It is as natural to be both 
religious and criminal as it is to be emotional and to 
lack the restraint of their emotions. Sudden, vio- 
lent, and convulsive conversions of such men more 
often than not further lessen their emotional control 
and restraint against all evil impulses. That is the 
logical explanation why such individuals so commonly 
go back to crime and vice after sobering up intervals 
with the Salvation Army and various missions of 
which Jerry McAuley's is a type." 

"That is certainly the case with alcoholics," com- 
mented Dr. Austin. "They become super-emotional 
and unstable through alcoholic intoxication, and owing 
to that condition, they are especially prone to par- 
oxysmal conversions to religion. When they are most 
shattered and broken down physically, the greater 
is the predisposition to convulsive conversion. Many 
alcoholics, even without an evangelical type of con- 
version, spontaneously become morbidly religious and 
read the Bible incessantly, yet keeping up with their 
'bracers.' Periodical drunkards very commonly are 
devotedly religious during the sordid period of de- 
pression following sprees. Many finally brace up, 
take liquor cures, others without, get well in all stages. 

"It must be obvious to everyone that the cure of 
these cases requires general building up, strengthening 

245 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

of the will and emotional control, cultivation of poise, 
etc. The latter they crave more than any one thing. 
That demand is what leads many to Christian Science. 
Temporary peace is often found in the complete cul- 
minating exhaustion after a religious convulsive con- 
version, but it is always transient, and worse emo- 
tionalism follows to be met in other ways. At cer- 
tain periods — those of mental depression — prayers 
and good resolutions are profuse and fervid, but 
emotional control seldom if ever comes from that 
alone. 

"Have you ever noticed, ,, observed Dr. McLean, 
"that occasionally reformed reprobates become evan- 
gelists of the most emotional order, and, not infre- 
quently are preferably sought after by certain classes 
of ministers who are not particular about what lengths 
they go in their endeavors to refill the empty pews of 
their churches? There are several such evangelists 
about the country at this opportune time, when the 
emotions of patriotism and the depressions of war 
lend a helping hand. It is now their harvest time. 

"He who now afflicts our city, comes heralded as a 
reformed reprobate, and unites all the characteristics 
of the emotional renegade, imparting his own unre- 
strained emotion to his crowd of auditors by sheer 
mental contagion. No stable balanced man could 
achieve such a success in this line as he, for he com- 
bines the unrestrained impulsive violence, the un- 
modulated voice, the agility, unbridled ferocity, and 

246 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

intemperate speech of his type. I see by the papers 
that evangelism as a vocation is now becoming popu- 
lar for emotionalized, and otherwise down and out, 
sporting men. According to the newspapers, Billy 
Sunday sought it when incapacitated for the diamond, 
and now the prize-fighter ex-champion Bob Fitzsim- 
mons makes his debut. Possibly the pugilist regards 
himself as especially well qualified to make good any 
threats of bodily harm to his opposers, which he may 
emulate Billy Sunday in making." 

"Returning to the subject of the pathology of pro- 
longed and intensive fixation of the attention on in- 
coherent and incoordinate narrative/'said Dr. Austin, 
"I have observed that there are individuals who will 
adhere to a literal interpretation of our version of 
the New Testament, and persevere in an endeavor to 
bring order out of its chaos, and to reconcile many 
irreconcilable incompatible jumbles of narrative in an 
effort to comprehend what they are told is the easiest 
to mentally compass of any book in existence (the 
Bible). They thus wrestle incessantly to solve such 
impossible problems as the attempt to reconcile the 
Jesus of Matthew 2:1, 6, 8, who was born in Bethle- 
hem a year or more prior to the death of Herod, 
which was in the year 3 B. C, and the Jesus of Luke, 
1 :26, who was born at Nazareth at the time of the 
taking of the census by Quirinus, Governor of Syria, 
which was in the year 8 A. D. The former, the meta- 
physical God, becoming merged into the latter, the 
man Jesus, of the stem of David, who was the Jewish 

247 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

political Messiah of Luke. These individuals will 
meditate without rest over the mutually irreconcilable 
features of the aeon Jesus of the Gospel of John, as 
compared with the mentioned two of the synoptics, 
and will ponder over which of these was the one who 
was described as crucified on the cross according to 
the four Gospels, and which was hung on a tree 
according to the Epistle of Paul.* They try to follow 
Acts in attempts at reconciling them, but without 
avail. They become lost in their bewilderment, and 
defeated in their endeavors to reason out the unrea- 
sonable. 

"One reads agast that the birth in Bethlehem of the 
divine infant, Jesus of Matthew, is heralded by the ap- 
pearance of the star in the East, while the birth in 
Nazareth of the infant Messiah of Luke is announced 
by the angel's words to the shepherds. The first com- 
ing in fulfillment of sacred prophecy, the second as a 
political deliverer. The former was honored by visits 
of Magi, the latter by shepherds. The latter was born 
twelve years after the former, and later was merged 
with it into one. The Jesus of Matthew, the paternal 
grandson of Jacob, 28 generations removed in descent 
from David, is not differentiated from the Jesus of 
Luke, paternal grandson of Heli and 43 generations 
removed in descent from David. If it were not all the 
infallible word of God, one might lay it aside with con- 
tempt, but in its position, if any incongruities or in- 
compatibilities are found, the trouble must be in the 
finder, never in the holy book. 

*Galatians 3:13. 
248 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"One Bible reader will be lost in bewilderment over 
the relationship between the several Johns, and another 
over the several Jameses of the New Testament. The 
mind is confused by the promiscuous and chaotic jum- 
bles of John the Baptist, John the disciple, John the 
Elder, John the Divine, John, son of Zebedee, John of 
Ephesus, John of Asia Minor, John surnamed Mark, 
and just Johns. Again one seeks in vain to identify 
or distinguish James the Just, James, brother of 
Jesus, James brother of Jude, James the disciple, James 
son of Alpheus, James son of Zebedee, James sur- 
named Boanerges, and many another unidentified 
James, which open the door for wild speculation with- 
out limit, but satisfy none. They begin and end a mys- 
tery. The mind of the sincere seeker after an intelli- 
gent narrative is left hopelessly adrift. Resort to Bibli- 
cal Dictionaries avails nothing but theories and dispu- 
tations. 

"It is true that many weak minds would not note 
such incongruities, however conspicuous, even in a 
lifetime of daily reading. Others go to their pastors 
for light, and accept anything explaining them away. 
Others still, seek dictionaries, but only those who con- 
sult the Encyclopedia Biblica get any degree of satis- 
faction. Many finally save themselves by drifting 
into Freethought literature. It is the poor soul that 
accepts the Bible, as it stands, as the infallible word of 
God, and is dissatisfied with being put off by his pas- 
tor, when he has sufficient intelligence for it, who is 
baffled, confused, and perplexed at its ambiguities, 

249 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

and becomes unbalanced when he peevishly and as- 
siduously adheres to the impossible task long enough. 
The acute and subtile mind of a highly impressionable, 
receptive, and unstable individual is most prone to 
become the victim of the mental distraction, of the 
involved obfuscation and obscurantism. 

''The revival manner of recruiting the ranks of 
church congregations is an implied insult to every 
member of an evangelical church. It brands him or 
her as one of an organization which is driven to re- 
sort to tactics for its sustenance, that mentally de- 
teriorates those whom it 'converts' and holds discip- 
lined as members, by virtue of such incurred mental 
deterioration, and by the hypnotic influence exer- 
cised over them by their pastors, or their evangelistic 
hirelings. 

"It would appear that the individuals constituting 
the revival harvest of the churches must be especially 
regarded as a group of persons with broken wills, 
enfeebled volition, prone to any and all types of emo- 
tional excesses, and worse than all, predisposed to 
manic-depressive insanity and correspondingly to com- 
mitment to madhouses." 

"I have often thought of that," remarked Dr. Mc- 
Lean. x Tt certainly is not a compliment to one's in- 
telligence to be registered as an evangelical church 
member. 

"The mental surrender to the awe of mysticism, 
a capitulation with clouded mind to beliefs and obses- 
250 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

sions, which are insusceptible of mental grasp and 
comprehension, are the first steps, toward the total 
discoordination of the unbalanced state, which is 
characterized by incoherence and loss of powers of 
discrimination, of orientation, and adaptation to the 
world about him. 

"I have always lined up with the social against 
the unsocial, the law abiding as against the law 
breaking, and the moral as against the immoral 
classes, but I have never been able to bring myself to 
understand how a system with such a history as the 
Christian religion, with such unwholesome features 
and pathological influences and achievements, is per- 
mitted to masquerade as an institution of ethical cul- 
ture in our otherwise highly civilized age. I am com- 
pelled to class it with the great war, as the child of 
political corruption, as a necessary prop to autocratic 
despotism, and to conclude that it is thus sustained 
by such despotisms. 

"Religion, ever the strength of autocratic and des- 
potic governments, is undoubtedly the greatest foe 
of republics. That which established and maintained 
the divine right of autocratic rulers and sustained 
them upon despotic thrones, always maintained the 
right to control allegiance of the ruled to the rulers, 
and thus was not only the real power behind thrones, 
but the prelate was the absolute dictator of royal 
command. The royal prerogative was always subject 
to the censorship and approval of the ecclesiastical 
despot behind it. 

251 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"In monarchies, where the ruler was the mere 
puppet of the Church, the subjects were by the Church 
held in subjection, and in submission to impositions 
by the monarchs, that would not be tolerated in re- 
publics. Even in republics, however, the allegiance to 
church hierarchies is unfortunately often stronger 
than that to the government. 

"The separation of Church and State in America, is 
rapidly breaking down, thanks to the political corrup- 
tion which is gradually surrendering the liberty fought 
and bled for by our forefathers and guaranteed by our 
Constitution. Both Protestant and Catholic are now 
able to coerce weak and venal politicians, who are de- 
pendent upon their suffrage, into enacting laws which 
inflict upon the public, independent of their religious 
convictions, oppressive and puritanical blue laws at 
the instigation of one, and Catholic special privileges 
and unequal opportunities at the instigation of the 
other. The evasion of taxation upon already immense 
and yet growing values of church property interests, 
evasion of just shares of military duty by the clergy 
and even divinity students, and by the religiously con- 
victed, thus devolving the burden of sustaining the 
country more wholly upon volunteers and non-shirk- 
ers, the pensioning of ecclesiastics with public funds, 
as Army, Navy, legislative hall, and institution chap- 
lains, and of Catholic priests as teachers of Indian 
schools; the appropriation of public funds to denomi- 
national, charitable, indigent, and penal institutions, 
and workhouses, has become a national vice. Legisla- 
252 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

tive attempts to enforce church attendance by closing 
public libraries, and forbidding the most innocent 
amusements on Sunday, are fostering all kinds of mis- 
chief in clandestine vices and crimes, while failing in 
the object for which they are designed." 

"Really," commented Dr. Austin, "good works are 
always welcome, and never have to be offered or sup- 
ported in the name of religion to find loyal American 
endorsement. But when, on the contrary, a church 
organization comes forward proposing a statute, 
which is dependent upon favorable consideration by 
the politicians and pays the price in order to be able 
to count on the support of that group, one may be 
sure that no one else but that group or the church 
wants it. However, so many such bills are being con- 
tinually offered our law-makers, that otherwise would 
be defeated, that one legislator agrees with another 
for the mutual support of each other's bills. That is 
why we are submerged with a myriad of undesired 
laws. The supposed vote control by the clergy is the 
bait to the politicians. 

"Religious bodies are not less faulty than political 
ones. Denominational organizations, dominated as 
they are by the ultra-orthodox factions, are therefore 
quite universally more orthodox than the majority of 
their individual members would be if independent. 
The progressive is ever amenable to discipline or ex- 
pulsion, never the reactionary. The minister is not 
free to progress. 

253 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"In every organization, which, like that of the 
church, occupies itself with the role of preservation 
of precedents, traditions, doctrines, or policies, the 
executive offices and directorates are quite univer- 
sally filled by the most reactionary elements, and in 
that capacity they are not only made eligible for 
office, but also empowered by an ironclad medieval 
constitution, with which they discipline the rank and 
file with a ruthless hand for all progressive tendencies. 
The psychological sequence of such conditions is man- 
ifested in a passive conformance to antiquated doc- 
trines by a large majority of ministers, who otherwise 
would adapt themselves to the age and environment 
in which they live. 

"On the brink, as it were, between the past, with all 
its ignorance and superstititons on the part of its pub- 
lic, and its venal, corrupt, dishonest, and immoral 
priesthood, on the one hand, and an enlightened future 
with a ministry for humanity, and of this world, in- 
stead of a dream of a celestial future one, on the 
other, stands the present-day Protestant minister, with 
a parental church organization on one side demanding 
of him the sustenance of the institutions, creeds, and 
practices, of the church of the bygone ages, and a 
congregation, as a part of a great democracy on the 
other side, which is subject to the impulses of modern 
development, mental, moral, physical, social, and 
ethical. 

"What alternative has the church member but to de- 

254 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

sert the pews when the unprogressive church fails to 
keep abreast of modern progress. Perhaps the minister 
then has no other alternative than to resort to the re- 
vival to recruit his wasted congregation. Perhaps we 
are too hard on the individual minister and blame him 
for what should be relegated to the man higher up — 
the reactionary — comfortably seated and salaried, who 
is only too ready to begin heresy proceedings against 
him who has the courage of his honest convictions. 

"Remember, just as individual morality and ethics 
are far superior to those of the group, the crowd, and 
the political body, the modern minister would be a 
thousand times a better minister of humanity if he 
was permanently divorced from the religious body 
politic. Individualiy, he would preach humanitarian- 
ism, and would not stoop to sustain wornout dogmatic 
doctrines which are based on Oriental imaginations, 
and falsehoods of half-civilized races of two thousand 
years ago. 

"The revival is one of the products of group or po- 
litical religion. A Ministers' Association here stoops 
to what a majority of its members would not do, as 
individuals, in its propagation." 

"I ' often wonder," said Dr. McLean, "if these 
ecclesiastical bodies will persist in their pernicious 
programs until the Church becomes a thing of public 
contempt, as well as a place of empty pews, and con- 
tinue the revival pest in their vain and futile attempt 
to compensate the present decline, until they have 



255 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

nothing left to reform, or will they at once begin the 
great work of evolution into a great humanitarian 
agency, gradually purging itself of the supernatural 
and any other elements which are unfit and are too 
weak to stand on their own merits exclusively. Only 
time will tell." 

"To continue my remarks," resumed Dr. Austin, 
"it is not unlike the case of the people who eat meat, 
but would not eat it if they had to slaughter the ani- 
mals. The revivalist is the butcher who is willing, 
for adequate financial consideration, to do what the 
men who employ him would not individually stoop to. 
In some respects the revival method is, from the 
pastor's standpoint, the lazy preacher's and the anti- 
efficiency way. It professes to compensate for his 
own deficiencies, in supplying occupiers of his pews 
and contributors to his salary and other funds, by 
emotional stampedes of those who would not be at- 
tracted by the superior qualities of his sermons. 

"With the revival relegated to bygone ages, to rest 
in the museums of the childhood of man, along with 
the Inquisition, Witchcraft, and general heresy per- 
secutions, as implements of involuntary and compul- 
sory ecclesiasticism, the one remaining coercive meas- 
ure to follow them should be the economic pressures 
still operative, wherein the more fanatical churchmen 
give preferment, political, professional, and com- 
mercial, to their own kind, and secret religious ritual- 
istic fraternities are supposed to exceed the churches 

256 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

in their practical applications. This pernicious prac- 
tice places a premium upon religious creed and affilia- 
tion, and correspondingly discourages reward for sep- 
arate personal qualities, ethical policies, justice, edu- 
cation, professional ability, and above all, unimpeded 
advancement. 

"If ministers would expend as much time and 
energy in fostering and promoting the progression and 
advancement of man, individually and socially, as 
they have heretofore, in vain attempts to sustain the 
formulas, systems, and creeds of bygone half-civil- 
ized ages, and would abandon the health and sanity- 
destroying methods of such attempts and take their 
places among twentieth century humanity, they would, 
I believe, regain their lost prestige as factors of pres- 
ent-day civilization. The time has gone, however, 
when the male delinquent and the unfit in the struggle 
for survival may find a haven as parasites on society 
in the Protestant ministry, or when improvident in- 
digents and mendicants can live monastically on en- 
dowments wrought from the public in exchange for 
salvational bribery. 

"With the rise of universal education, the minister 
and priest have become less and less teachers of se- 
cular learning and more exclusively and typically ex- 
pounders of religion. What surprise is there then 
that he is in panic, and desperate over the continued 
decline of religion. Personally, I do not believe there 
is any occasion for that, however. These men are 

257 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

misled by their ecclesiastical associations. Crowd 
psychology again. I believe they can regain their 
former vocations as secular teachers. 

"I am convinced that there is a great, and as yet 
undeveloped, field for able and scholarly public speak- 
ers, who already, as ministers, have great edifices 
everywhere, which are available as social arenas and 
auditoriums, and also virgin fields before them for 
mass education in sociology, psychology, ethics, poli- 
tics, civil government, etc., which are as yet exclu- 
sively subjects of higher education, but which would 
confer the greatest boon to all men and to the nation, 
if they would be brought creed-free to their door." 

"Revivals, however, are not the only means of sub- 
ordination of the will by religious influence," com- 
mented Dr. McLean. "We read in the newspapers 
from time to time of suits brought by children and 
near-relatives of recently deceased, praying the courts 
to set aside wills made under undue influences, be- 
questing property to priests, ministers, and divers 
ecclesiastical institutions, which are of decidedly 
dubious character." 

"I know of a recent case," remarked Dr. Austin, 
"in which a man slowly dying of Bright's disease, ex- 
tending over several years, was influenced by a sister 
and her family, three years before his death, but at a 
time when his mind was markedly deteriorated by 
the disease, to make a will bequeathing a large fortune 
largely to them, at the expense of his wife, who re- 

258 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

nounced the will, and his brother. He had no chil- 
dren. 

"This man, previously a Unitarian, was initiated 
into Christian Science by the parties, who never per- 
mitted him to get away from the spell of the influ- 
ence, or their presence, until he sank into coma. 
Meanwhile, they kept all other relatives and friends 
away on the pretense that not being 'Scientists' they 
were unwelcome, and kept his illness a secret from his 
brother who lived in another city. His wife, a weak 
woman, was cleverly managed, and the will was kept 
secret from her by all concerned in its construction. 

"In this case, the only persons admitted into the 
house were Christian Scientists, who made up the 
nurses, healers, etc. The son of the controlling sister, 
who was appointed the executor of the estate, devoted 
much of his time the last year of the patient's life to 
his uncle's control. Nothing was overlooked, two 
or three Christian Science periodicals were subscribed 
for and were fairly lived within by the slowly dying 
man. Even the bookkeepers and temporary manager 
of his business, in his absence, were converted to this 
'Christian Science.' The espionage system and man- 
agement was complete. There were no children in 
this case, so the sister's family controlled everything." 

"What happened after the patient's death?" en- 
quired Dr. McLean. 

"The 'Scientist' sister's family proceeded to close 
in on the widow so inhumanly that in mere self-de- 

259 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

fense she had to renounce the will before the first 
year of her widowhood had expired. But, despite of 
it all, a great business fell into the hands of these land 
pirates, of which they soon got absolute control, and 
a receivership ended its career. I believe the case is 
still in the courts, more than ten years after the pa- 
tient's death, and even the widow is now dead." 

"That is very interesting," observed Dr. McLean, 
"but I know of a case in which a feeble-minded widow, 
worth about seventy-five thousand dollars at the time 
of her husband's death, was influenced to desert an- 
other church affiliation for the Christian Science 
church, to which she liberally contributed, by a sister 
who was well supported in the intrigue by her grown- 
up family. This woman was so closely kept in tow 
that every outside influence was barred. 

"She was influenced to make a trust deed of prac- 
tically all of her property for the period of her life- 
time, to a nephew, a son of the sister who led in her 
control and to make him her executor after death. I 
need not dwell upon the legal status of such a thing. 
She has a brother and two children, but by winning 
over the oldest child, a daughter, to the plan, it was 
put through, at first secretly, and later in spite of her 
brother's knowledge and resistance. 

"The end of this is not yet. We may naturally ex- 
pect foul means to follow somewhere, but whether 
the fortune can be saved or criminal prosecutions 
can be made to compensate for the damage already 

260 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

done, remains to be seen. All this was accomplished 
by religious hypnotism." 

"That is most interesting/' commented Dr. Austin. 
"What a book it would make if one. could collate the 
cases occurring in our country, for a single month, 
in which religion in one form or other is used as a 
device to separate people from their money." 

Dr. McLean arose while Dr. Austin was still speak- 
ing, and as soon as he finished, remarking the late- 
ness of the hour, bade his friend good-night. As Dr. 
Austin grasped Dr. McLean's hand heartily, he 
thanked him most sincerely for his very kind atten- 
tion, consideration, and comments, which helped to 
elucidate the case. Dr. McLean then hurriedly took 
his departure. 



261 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

Chapter XIV. 

THANKS to the incessant painstaking application 
of the most advanced medical knowledge of 
neurotic and mental disease to every phase of 
Hamilton's case by his devoted uncle Austin, the 
young man had been enabled to complete his academic 
school course simultaneously with a carefully worked 
out and carried out course of treatment which had 
wrought a general physical state that was far superior 
to that which found Hamilton susceptible to revival 
propaganda. The day had arrived when Hamilton 
was to graduate, and Dr. Austin had called at the 
Wheeler home to escort Mrs. Wheeler to the school 
to witness the celebration of the happy event. It was 
indeed a joyous occasion. It was the eventual cul- 
mination of what appeared a few weeks ago to be 
impossible. To all who knew what had been accom- 
plished in a medical way, and not the least among 
them was Mrs. Wheeler, Dr. Austin was a hero, 
though he modestly protested that Dr. McLean was 
also guilty as a participatnt in the great achievement. 
Dr. Austin, elated and happy, had arrived early. He 
was so jubilant that he had left his office an hour 
earlier than necessary, and now had to wait at the 
Wheeler home until time to go for the Commence- 
ment exercises, but he enjoyed the conversation with 
his niece while waiting. 



262 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Martha Wheatcroft was here yesterday after- 
noon," said Mrs. Wheeler to Dr. Austin. 

"Well," responded the Doctor, "what is up now?" 
"She misses John a good deal," said Mrs. Wheeler. 
"I think she would be very glad to drop her suit and 
take him back. She has not found herself as popular 
with other men with honorable intentions as she had 
anticipated. In fact, she has already been taken by 
two or three men with whom she has taken up, to be 
a woman of loose morals, which disgusted her greatly, 
since she regards herself as once more in the matri- 
monial market. 

"One of these men, it seems, received a tip from that 
fellow with whom she had a flirtation last summer, 
when she went down to Sea Bright alone. It shows 
that he was not fascinated with any particular charms, 
for he, too, must have identified her as a light-headed 
butterfly that he might toy with and drop at his pleas- 
ure. Now she is morose and ultra-religious. Her 
self-pity knows no bounds, and her self-love is as 
strong as ever." 

"Ah, I expected as much," ejaculated Dr. Austin, 
"her egoism is painful. Does she think as much as 
ever about the salvation of her soul? I thought a 
while ago if she kept on as she was going it last sum- 
mer, it would have to be a case of salvage instead of 
salvation. But she can't help it, the apparently con- 
tradictory states are not what they appear. Her love 
of pleasure on earth and her eternal anxiety for the 

263 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

perpetuation of her precious soul in a celestial para- 
dise are but excessive manifestations of that same 
self-love. If the men were like her, few would be 
sacrificing their all for their country. I have always 
felt sorry for John, to have been the slave to her 
wants that he has. He never received the least con- 
sideration from her, and with all he did for her she 
abused him continually for not doing more. Her 
absence certainly must be a relief to him." 

"It is just beginning to dawn on her what she has 
lost," observed Mrs. Wheeler. "Heretofore when she 
was away, John looked after everything in her ab- 
sence. The care of her own property and affairs al- 
ways devolved upon him. When she sued for divorce 
she took over everything into her own hands, and now 
she is paying lawyers, agents, and several laborers to 
do what John did when she, all the time, was giving 
him credit for doing nothing at all." 

"I met John the other day," remarked the Doctor, 
"I never saw him look better. He looks ten years 
younger. I asked him if he was lonesome, and he 
laughed at my bad guess. I told him I expected to 
hear that they had come together again, but he made 
no comment. If he ever gives in, it will be on the chil- 
dren's account, not her's. He is getting weaned away 
from her every day, and enjoying the change — the 
release." 

Dr. Austin now admitted to Mrs. Wheeler, for the 
first time, how bad Hamilton's case was directly after 

264 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

the third attendance at the revival, and that under 
ordinary circumstances he would have continued 
through life with a broken will, emotional and un- 
stable, if not unbalanced. Had he become unbalanced 
beyond a certain stage or degree, they would simply 
have had to place him quietly in a private sanitarium, 
where thousands upon thousands of the American 
public, who are financially able to pay for it, are; 
wasting away their lives in luxurious custody, while 
hundreds of thousands are kept by funds derived 
from public taxation. 

Dr. Austin explained to Mrs. Wheeler that notwith- 
standing his own growing hostility to the emotional 
harm that the evangelical churches are doing, he had 
viewed with complete indifference Hamilton's bring- 
ing up as a low church Episcopalian. He did not re- 
gard his concepts of the Christian religion as harm- 
ful, and as a physician he saw no other reason for 
seeking to mold any particular religious belief. He 
always said that he never asked a man's views on 
politics or religion and never considered therrf in 
estimating his ethics or his morals. If he was a good 
example of American citizenship, he was the best the 
world afforded. 

Events had, however, so shaped themselves that 
Hamilton must now be relieved of some obsession and 
credulity which unbalanced his reason. Nothing less 
than a course of instruction which would correct many 
misconceptions, would avail to re-establish a degree of 

265 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

independence of consciousness. First of all, he must 
be taught that emotional feeling is not to be inter- 
preted as a sense of spiritual force, the Holy Ghost, of 
Christ, or of God. It is not a thing to be cultivated, 
but to be shunned. It is not to be permitted to run 
wild or to riot, but to be disciplined and controlled. 
The imagination, also, must be brought under com- 
plete restraint, and differentiated strictly from logical 
and constructive thought. 

Dr. Austin went on to explain that inasmuch as 
Hamilton had had such an unfortunate experience 
prior to getting into college, where among other things 
he would acquire a course of higher psychology, he 
now felt it incumbent upon him to advance to him a 
little of such learning, simply to dispel some erroneous 
impressions of his childhood, which had now been 
seized upon by his religious teachers to frame a false 
basis of mental perception and comprehension. 

"Modern psychology," observed Dr. Austin, "is 
doing a great work in giving the young of our coun- 
try a true concept of the human mind. It brings the 
normal student to view the mind as a physical function, 
as a natural product, and not as a supernatural entity, 
and also the imagination as something to be curbed. 
Many people confuse imagination with constructive 
thought. Almost daily we read of the work of great 
inventors, the fictions of great novelists, etc., as prod- 
ucts of the imagination. I have even heard a preacher 
praise the imagination as the ideal mental faculty to 

266 i ij -■: ! I 






The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

be cultivated and augmented, never mentioning that 
the uncontrolled and delirious imaginations are the 
bane of the world, that inventions are usually the cul- 
minations of prolonged-persisting experimentations, 
that successful authors are architects and build fic- 
tions as men build houses, following a plot as builders 
follow plans which are previously laboriously worked 
out. 

"I never met but one 'Christian Scientist,' who pre- 
tended to know much of anything physiological, patho- 
logical, or any modern general psychology of the 
higher order. This man I conversed with on the sub- 
ject for several hours, while on a railroad journey. 
He told me he had been all through the best works 
on the subject and in the end with disgust turned to 
Christian Science, which he found to be the first and 
only system of learning that satisfied him. After list- 
ening to his story with respect, I asked him what 
works he regarded most highly among those he re- 
viewed prior to taking up his final and satisfactory 
work of Mrs. Eddy's. 

"He named over several, not one of which was a 
work of a recognized psychologist. All were of the 
spiritual and mystical sort. I asked him what was the 
best of these books, in his estimation, and he answered 
'Cosmic Consciousness by Bucke.' We do not want 
Hamilton to get such ideas of psychology. I regard 
an adequate knowledge of collegiate psychology as a 
safeguard against false concepts, not only of mind, but 

267 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

of the emotions, and many false colorings given to 
them in way of divination, spiritualization, etc. If 
this revival had not occurred before Hamilton was in 
his junior year in Columbia or Harvard, this result 
would not have been obtained." 

"You are an evolutionist, Uncle, are you not?" in- 
terrogated Mrs. Wheeler. "I think you told me quite a 
while ago that all scientific and educated men are evo- 
lutionists nowadays." 

"Yes, my dear," answered Dr. Austin, "your recol- 
lection is perfectly correct." 

"Now, as I understand it, continued Mrs. Wheeler, 
"the law of evolution accounts for the present exis- 
tence and state of development of this world, as of the 
entire universe, by the application of the law of Nat- 
ural Selection, by virtue of which the survival value 
of anything is one of fitness, while conversely it oper- 
ates by the elimination of the unfit." 

"Exactly so," responded Dr. Austin. "Professor 
Huxley most aptly and tersely characterized it as the 
law of the survival of the fittest." 

"That being the case," interrogated Mrs. Wheeler, 
"is it not permissible and fair to conclude on that 
basis that Christianity, which has survived for about 
two thousand years, has survived because of its fit- 
ness? Would it not under this law have been long 
ago eliminated if unfit?" 

"My dear Helen," interjected Dr. Austin, "some 
preacher has been talking to you, or some one else 
268 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

has been giving you second-hand their stereotyped 
argument. It sounds very well to one who is ignorant 
of the subject, but when one considers that the law 
of evolution is one of Natural Selection, and the sur- 
vival of religions is one of Artificial Selection, it at 
once falls to the ground. 

"I have pointed out to you that religions act on the 
human subject pathologically, not normally, which 
alone shows that they are not products of Natural 
Selection, but I have stated that they have been sus- 
tained by Artificial Selection. Many things have sur- 
vived in this manner, such as diseases, vices, crime, 
etc., and certainly you do not believe that Brahmanism, 
Buddhism, and Mohemmedanism, have survived be- 
cause of their fitness, do you? 

"The history of Christianity tells us only too plainly 
the manner of operation of the artificial selection 
which has perpetuated it to our otherwise civilized age. 
Of course, entirely at first, and more or less in all 
ages, it has obtained converts and church accessions 
in the same abnormal manner that the various sects are 
doing it now. However, from the time that Constan- 
tine utilized it for political aggrandizement and made 
it the State religion of Rome, it has been sustained by 
the wholesale torture, murder, burnings, and massacres 
of unbelievers, and by the most severe penalties, even 
for the slightest heresies. The Spanish Inquisition, 
which began in 1478, continued until Napoleon stopped 
it a little over a century ago. The victims of the tor- 
tures and murders were numbered in the millions, 

269 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

while millions more were sacrificed in the religious 
wars from Constantine's time to date. 

"It is true that the Christians were generally in the 
ascendancy, they were the prepared and the aggressors, 
by virtue of which they were generally the conquerors 
of the unbelievers, heretics, and non-conformists, but 
it was ever a case of might against right, of ignorance, 
superstition, fanaticism, subconscious prejudice and 
intolerance against knowledge and reason, of the ab- 
normal against the normal, and therefore of a defeat 
of natural by artificial selection, wherein the learned, 
the wise, and the noblest of men and women were 
sacrificed by the ignorant, the unintelligent, and the 
ignoble." 

"Oh, Uncle! Why haven't I thought of that before?" 
impatiently ejaculated Mrs. Wheeler. "I am not ig- 
norant of history, I know it only too well, but I did 
not think of it when the argument I repeated to you 
was presented to me. Certainly anyone who is ac- 
quainted with history since the beginning of the Chris- 
tian era, must admit the truth of your compelling an- 
swer to it. I see it has truly been a case of defeat of 
Natural Selection by an artificial one. I well know 
how science and intellectual development have been re- 
tarded and almost throttled by religious bigots. 

"I cannot, however, get away from the feeling that 
the unbelievers of all times have been a class of people 
who were uninterested in reunions of relatives and 
friends after the painful separation of death. I think 

270 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

that such a hope is natural and is one that is impera- 
tive with us." 

"You are both wrong and right in that," responded 
Dr. Austin. "You are wrong in thinking a negative 
position implies an absence of either desire or hope. 
In fact the wish is father of the thought in us all, and 
no less so in the most scientific man than in a woman 
or child. The only difference is, the former merely 
hopes, while the latter insists it must be so and will 
have it so. You must remember also that self-preser- 
vation is the first law of nature, and we have also an 
egoistic or selfish desire that we be eternally perpetu- 
ated. In some people, this becomes an absorbing pas- 
sion, but you will note that they are not the self-sac- 
rificing persons in the affairs of this world. The all 
absorbing passion for immortality that possesses some 
individuals is derived from the same physical basis 
which makes them otherwise innately religious. Even 
the lowest criminals are passionately jealous of the 
immortality of their souls or personalities. 

"You must remember that all modern physicians, 
regardless of their religious and church affiliations, 
as soon as they are brought into professional relations 
with mental derangements, at once forget all about 
their religious beliefs and treat the mind as the physi- 
cal functional product of their patients. If we didn't, 
we would not accomplish therapeutic results. We pro- 
fessionally recognize that we must maintain normal 
animal life and the physical functional activities to 

271 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

maintain the mental function. This implies that when 
the body ceases to functionate, the functional product 
— the mind, also ceases to exist regardless of all our 
most fervid aspirations and ambitions to the contrary. 
If belief would change the result, we would all very 
quickly believe it with all our might.* 

. "You will probably sooner or later ask the ques- 
tion: Why mankind has not long since dispelled un- 
worthy and untrue concepts which were dependent 
upon artificial selection for their maintenance, and why 
man has not progressed in the better understanding 
of the life he is living and the environment upon which 
he is dependent. That question was answered cen- 
turies ago by that subtile English philosopher Francis 
Bacon. Bacon wrote : 

" 'The human understanding is no dry light, but re- 
ceives an infusion from the will and affections, whence 
proceed sciences which may be called 'sciences as one 
would.' For what a man had rather were true he more 
readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things 
from impatience of research; sober things, because 
they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from 
superstition; the light of experience from arrogance 
and pride, lest his mind should seem to be occupied 
with things mean and transitory ; things not commonly 
believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. 
Numberless, in short, are the ways, and sometimes im- 
perceptible, in which the affections colour and infect 
the understanding/ " 



272 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"Isn't that splendid?" exclaimed Mrs. Wheeler. 
"Certainly he penetrated the innermost recesses of 
men's minds, and excavated the factors that move 
them. How few modern men are so deep as he." 

"I have in mind a modern psychologist," rejoined 
Dr. Austin, "who has given us something that well 
supplements Bacon's analytical picture. Dr. E, W. 
Scripture, in his New Psychology, contributes some- 
thing like this: 

" 'Our passions, our prejudices, and the dominant 
opinion of the day are abundant sources of dangerous 
illusion, by exaggerating the probabilities in their own 
favour, and in depreciating the contrary probabilities. 
The vivid impression which we receive from present 
events, and which causes us scarcely to remark the con- 
trary facts observed by others, is one of the principal 
causes of error against which we cannot be too much 
on our guard. Habit and sympathy determine to a 
great extent our beliefs, and, we may add, our state- 
ments concerning our observations.' " 

"That is good," commented Mrs. Wheeler. "Cer- 
tainly Dr. Scripture is awake to the possibilities of 
erroneous beliefs, and to the illusions born of mis- 
interpretations of our observations. How very a 
propos is his name in such a connection. 

"I am ready to go to the school any time now, Uncle," 
observed Mrs. Wheeler, "and I anticipate that if we 
expect to get seats, we had better start pretty soon." 

"Very well, my dear," rejoined Dr. Austin, "I have 

273 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

been ready all this hour I have been boring you with 
religion, psychology, and their critics." 

"I beg you not to talk that way," responded Mrs. 
Wheeler, "you know very well,- Uncle, that I have been 
intensely interested in the subjects of our conversa- 
tions, or rather your lectures . I am not a bit shocked 
now that I have taken time to think it over, and I 
would like to see the establishment of the new religion 
predicted by Dr. Eliot. I really am convinced that the 
world will be better and happier whenever that day 
dawns when religion shall be purged of all supernat- 
uralism." 

Thus they conversed until they stepped into Dr. 
Austin's cabriolet, and rapidly covered the short dis- 
tance over to the school. 

Now, after five weeks have elapsed since the last 
fateful revival experience, we find Hamilton, success- 
ful with his examinations, and graduating with his 
class. All these weeks Mrs. Wheeler had spent as so 
many months of anxious moments. Dr. Austin had 
devoted himself to Hamilton as a dominant occupation, 
even denying his time to other patients who would 
have gladly paid him well for it, in order to see Ham- 
ilton daily. Not a manifestation was ignored, nor was 
any derangement permitted to go unadjusted, but a 
most delicate adjustment of every phase of the case 
was made as indicated. 

A most perfect regimen of cold baths, brisk rub- 
downs, gymnastics, etc., to harden the tissues, medi- 

274 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

cines to build up and clear up the blood, breathing ex- 
ercises to improve general oxygenation, combined with 
the special daily adjustments, were rewarded with 
success. 

Dr. Austin took every precaution to guard Hamilton 
against every possible emotion, exaltation, and depres- 
sion during the critical" period of his recovery, but 
despite his mother's usual alertness, Hamilton was 
caught reading the newspaper account of the suicide of 
Mr. Edward Stone of 341 W. 14th St., which was com- 
mitted on May 15th, on his return from the revival. 
The effect on Hamilton was soon counteracted by Dr. 
Austin by a vigorous disciplinary talk. 

The Hunts had learned through some mysterious 
channel of Hamilton's conversion, and Mrs. Hunt and 
Eleanor, being as is characteristic of their sex, relig- 
iously disposed, were quite enthusiastic over what 
they believed to be a strong moral assertion of de- 
veloping manhood. Mr. Hunt, however, did not see 
it that way. Being an astute business man of long ex- 
perience, who had brushed up against the world dur- 
ing a career of ascent from a very modest beginning 
in life, having been a close student of human nature, 
observing many failures of emotionally unfit men, he 
looked somewhat dubiously upon Hamilton's experi- 
ence. 

He had intending finding for himself an excuse for a 
call at the Wheeler home at an opportune time when 
he might have occasion to observe Hamilton closely, or 

275 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

perchance invite the Wheelers to spend a Sunday with 
them at their Long Island country place, but the sea- 
son was so late, and the weather so cold or otherwise 
inclement, that procrastination served to defer it until 
the Hunts received an invitation containing Hamilton's 
card to attend the graduation exercises of his class. 

Mr. Hunt now made it his foremost duty to attend, 
and at the close hastened to Hamilton to congratulate 
him. When he beheld the handsome rosy- faced boy, a 
picture of rugged health, he enthusiastically held his 
hand until he could join it to Eleanor's, then turned to 
pay his compliments to Mrs. Wheeler. 

The End. 



276 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

APPENDIX A 

Church accessions during the past year (1910 or 1911) by 
confession or confirmation according to ages. 

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 







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Ages at which received 
The above enlarged diagram is taken from page 
207 of the book entitled "Making Religion Efficient," 
edited by Clarence A. Barbour, D.D., Y. M. C. A. 
Press, 1912. Appearing as one of the survey charts 
of the Men and Religion Forward Movement. 
The solid black area represents the accessions correspond- 
ingly as it extends from left to right to represent the ages at 
which persons were received, and from bottom to top to 
represent the numbers received. It is to be noted that this 
chart shows only those who were actually taken into church 
membership, but it is to be observed that it also shows the 
great preponderance in numbers just prior to the age of 15, 
which is a fair average of both sexes, for the age of puberty. 

277 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

This is explained by Prof. Coe ("Spiritual Life", page 48) : 
"Churches that lay less stress upon the inner experience and 
more upon religious nurture place confirmation or a first com- 
munion at about the same point in respect to age." 

Professor George A. Coe, in this book, "The Spiritual 
Life," New York, 1900, undertook to set forth the ages at 
which the maximum number of religious conversions, awaken- 
ings, as he calls them, occurred. He summarizes: (p. 42) "It 
is noticeable that there are three well-marked periods of 
awakening, namely at 12 and 13, 16 and 17, and 20. Only 10 
per cent of all the awakenings occurred under the age of 12 
years, while fifty per cent occurred at these maximum periods. 
. . . (p. 44) Only thirteen per cent were converted under 
12, and only sixteen per cent after 20 . . . (p. 45) If, 
now this average age of greatest religious awakening be 
compared With the age of accession to puberty, the conclusion 
will be sufficiently convincing that the mental upturning that 
accompanies the physical transformation is peculiarly favorable 
to a life decision in the matter of religion. 

(p. 46) "The curve which might be drawn to represent 
these proportions would give a premonition of itself at 13 
(the first period of adolescent awakening), start in again at 
17 (the second such period) reach a decided maximum at 20 
(the third period), and then rapdly fall away. 

"All of this goes to show that religious tendencies are a 
most important feature of general adolescent development. 
When the approaching change first heralds itself the religious 
consciousness also tends to awaken. Again, when the bodily 
life is in most rapid transition the religious instincts likewise 
come into a new and greater life." 

APPENDIX B. 

Professor Emil Kraepelin of the University of Munich, 
in his "Clinical Psychiatry," 3rd English from 2nd German 
Edition, revised and edited by Dr. Thomas Johnstone, denom- 
inates what the theologians term "conviction of sin" as "de- 
lusions of sin." (pp. 5 and 142). Of the more serious form 
of mental disease, Dr. Kraepelin writes (p. 6) : 

"We give the name of melancholia to this condition, in 
which we see the gradual development of a state of apprehen- 
sive depression, associated with more or less fully-developed 
delusions. The most common of these are ideas of sin, which 

278 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

generally have a religious colouring. Such are the ideas of 
having fallen away from God and being forsaken, or of being 
possessed by the devil . . (p. 7) The resemblance to anx- 
iety in a sane person is all the greater because the depres- 
sion has followd a painful external cause. But we can easily 
see that the severity, and more especially the duration, of the 
emotional depression have gone beyond the limits of what is 
normal." 

The relation of the critical periods of life to the delusions 
of sin, is thus interpreted by Dr. Johnstone : "Kraepelin sep- 
arated from maniacal-depressive insanity the depression of the 
involutional epoch. This state of depression, characterized by 
an anxious affective state and ideas of sin and unworthiness, 
he described as melancholia, as distinct from the depressed 
phases of maniacal-depressive insanity." (p. 349). 

APPENDIX C 

The material physical status of all mental and emotional 
attributes, is substantiated by the obvious and well accredited 
fact that all mental and emotional abnormalities are character- 
ized by well recognized physical and chemical changes, together 
with their typical manifestations, of which every well informed 
physician is cognizant. In proof of the unquestionable abnor- 
mality of the functional disturbances within the limits of 
sanity, or to put it negatively : without the borderline of those 
of well denned insanity, we may mention first in frequency, 
that attacks of hysterical excitement from any cause are ac- 
companied or followed by polyuria, corresponding to the pro- 
foundly of the attacks. Tensional states, anxiety, worry, 
and allied conditions are alike accompanied. Particularly sus- 
pense and urgent solicitude, such as one of vital character, 
and more than ever when coupled with fear. In these cases 
there is great fall of specific gravity of the urine. Less fre- 
quently oliguria, and even anuria may occur- 
In cases of hyperesthesia, and particularly of neurasthenia, 
the urine is occasionally observed to exhibit high specific grav- 
ity, low volume, excess of uric acid in relation to urea, of 
earthy phosphates to alkali phosphates, an increase of chlor- 
ides, and lowering of the oxidation coefficient, indicating 
more or less degree of acidosis and anoxemia by Hamberger's 
law. In severe cases of neurasthenia more or less diminution 
of urea, and in most cases, a great excess of uric acid, is ob- 
served. A marked depression in the activity of nitrogenous 

279 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

oxidation is indicated by the relation born by the total nitro- 
gen of the urine. 

The intimate relation born by maniacal-depressive states 
to metabolism is illustrated by the accompanying fluctuations 
in body weight of these cases. During the period of super-ex- 
citement the weight falls, sometimes several pounds, and dur- 
ing periods of calm and poise it may make very pronounced 
gains, even 25 kilogrammes (about 12 lbs.) 

In cases of pronounced melancholia the metabolism may 
become so depressed that gain in weight is induced simply 
by general stagnation of vital processes, including both 
combustion and elimination. 

The dependence of the mental function upon the physio- 
logical processes is perhaps most intimately exemplified by the 
activity of the circulation as propelled by the heart. In cases 
where the other factors are good and the heart defective, the 
mentality rises and falls directly with the heart's action. Also 
when other factors than the thyroid gland are normal, we see 
idiocy is exhibited inversely as the activity of the gland is 
arrested, and lucidity is produced corresponding to the arti- 
ficial supply of the elements of these glands. 

APPENDIX D. 

Sanford H. Cobb, in his "Rise of Religious Liberty in 
America" (New York 1902, pp. 271-274), thus describes the 
troubles and dissensions in the early New England churches 
produced by James Davenport, the predecessor of the present 
day violent evangelists: 

"So the churches had rest for a while until the rise of that 
convulsion, known as the Great Awakening. This movement, 
the sequel of Whitefield's preaching tours, besides its effects 
of much spiritual quickening, was attended by many most de- 
plorable features. The reaction from the conservatism of the 
past had resulted in many cases in the wildest extravagances 
of action and speech. Many of the promoters of the move- 
ment were unbridled in their denunciations of the ministers, 
who could not go with them in the 'new measures.' They 
intruded upon parishes, holding irregular services, urging 
people not to attend the ministry of their pastors, whom 
they reviled as unconverted. New England was divided 
among 'New Lights' and 'Old Lights/ while the Presbyterian 
Church in the middle colonies was split into 'Old Side' and 
'New Side.' x 

1— Hodge, History of Presbyterian Church, Chaps. IV, V; Palfrey, Com- 
pendious History of New England, IV, 76-107. 

280 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

"To the staid representatives of the Connecticut estab- 
lishment this assault of excited itinerant and intrusive 
preachers was a grievous offense. Not only did these preach- 
ers embrace every opportunity offered by sympathizers, but 
they forced themselves into parishes, uninvited and opposed 
by the settled pastors. 

"Among the most troublesome of these itinerants was 
James Davenport, pastor at Southold. Long Island, in whom 
the balance of mind was unsettled by the revival excitement. 1 
He came into Connecticut with Whitefield in 1740, and 
again in 1741 alone, preaching at Stratford, Saybrook, 
and other places, and used most violent language against the 
ministers and Churches with 'unrestrained liberty of noise 
and outcry in time of divine service/ A bit of correspon- 
dence between Colonel Lynde of Saybrook and Governor Tal- 
cott may illustrate the mind of the more sober sort. 

"The colonel wrote to the governor complaining of 
Davenport's conduct at Saybrook, where he had intruded his 
service in the parish of the Rev. Mr. Hart, whom he had 
treated with great disrespect. Lynde as a magistrate had 
thought of prosecuting him, but applied to the governor for 
advice. The reply of the latter, under date of September 4, 
1741, is grave and severe. 'I am surprised/ he wrote, 'that 
Mr. Davenport should in so imperious and unwarrientable 
manner take upon him to condemn any, and Especially our 
most Eminently pious and Industrious Ministers, to be 
Carnall, etc., which I look upon as usurping the authority of 
the Most High. And his advice to people not to hearken to 
their Ministers by him condemned, but to go 10 or 20 miles, 
and that they had better sett upon private meetings amongst 
themselves, etc. ; all which is a violation and open contempt 
of the Laws of this Colony, and so apparently tends to the 
breach of the peace of our Religious Sosiaties and subver- 
sion of all good orders in Church and State/ The governor 
then called on ministers, people, and magistrates to 'use all 
their Joynt Interest by advice, Influence, and authority, to 
Incourage what is vertuous and praiseworthy, and to sup- 
press every disorderly and Vile practice and whatsoever 
tends to the hurt and Reproach of Religion/ 

"So great had the trouble become in a large portion of 
the colony, that in the fall session of 1741 the assembly sum- 
moned the general association of ministers to meet at Guil- 
ford in the following November to devise a remedy, 'hoping 
1 Takott Papers; Connecticut Historical Collection V, 370. 

281 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

that such a general convention may issue in the accommoda- 
tion of divisions, settling peace, love, and charity, and pro- 
moting the true interests of vital religion." x The conven- 
tion met accordingly, and after discussion found the root of 
the trouble in the unwarranted intrusion of itinerant preach- 
ers into parishes, and recommended to the legislature meas- 
ures to correct that evil. This advice was adopted by the 
general court, which at its next session, 1742, passed an 'Act 
for regulating Abuses and correcting Disorders in Ecclesi- 
astical Affairs." 2 

"One of the preachers sent out of the colony was Dav- 
enport, who had had similar treatment at Boston. Complaints 
of his conduct at Stratford had been lodged with the court. 
He was summoned to appear before that body, whose de- 
liverance, after examination, ran : 'That the acts of Daven- 
port do, and have a natural tendency to, disturb and destroy 
the peace and order of this government. Yet it further ap- 
pears to this Assembly that the said Davenport is under the 
influence of enthusiastical impressions and impulses, and 
thereby disturbed in the rational faculty of his mind, and 
therefore to be pitied and compassionated, and not to be 
treated as he otherwise might be.' With this opinion, the as- 
sembly ordered his transportation to his home at South - 
old. 8 

We observe that not only James Davenport, but those 
evangelists in general who conducted the revival campaign 
known as the "Great Awakening," were recognized disturbers 
of church peace in New England. To quote from Cobb, ibid, 
p. 235: 

"The Great Awakening of 1741 came as a disturber of the 
quiet order of the Churches. It was not only a quickening of 
the religious life, but a protest against the low views of re- 
quirements for Church membership introduced by the Half- 
Way Covenant, to which the great majority of the Churches 
had fallen victims. It was attended by much excitement and 
many intrusions into parishes by unauthorized ministers, to 
the great offence of many of the established clergy.' 4 A re- 
sult of the revival was seen in the secession of members from 
the regular Churches, who organized Churches of their own, 
and for that reason were called Separates." 

1 Massachusetts: Records VIII, 440. 

2 Ibid, VIII, 454. 

3 Ibid, VIII, 483. Davenport had previously been tried in Mass 

achusetts and sent out of the colony. Palfrey, op. cit. 

4 Palfrey, ibid, IV, 79-100. 
282 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

APPENDIX E 

We append a quotation from "The Communistic Societies 
of the United States," by Charles Nordhof f, showing first, page 
119, the origin of the Shakers from a religious revival, which 
was followed by delusional manifestations : 

"About the year 1747, some members of the Society of 
Quakers, under the influence of a religious revival, formed 
themselves into a society, at the head of which was a pious 
couple, Jane and James Wardley. To these people Ann Lee 
and her parents joined themselves in 1758, Ann being then 
twenty-three years of age and unmarried. These people suf- 
fered persecution from the ungodly, and some of them were 
even cast into prison, on account of certain unusual and violent 
manifestations of religious fervor, which caused them to re- 
ceive the name of 'Shaking Quakers' ; and it was while Ann 
Lee thus lay in jail, in the summer of 1770, that 'by a special 
manifestation of divine light the present testimony of sal- 
vation and eternal life was fully revealed to her/ and by her 
to the society, 'by whom she from that time was acknowledged 
as mother in Christ, and by them was called Mother Ann'* 
She saw the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory, who revealed to 
her the great object of her prayers, and fully satisfied all 
the desires of her soul. The most astonishing visions and 
divine manifestations were presented to her view in so clear 
and striking a manner that the whole spiritual world seemed 
displayed before her." 

From page 158 we quote an interview on accessions to 
membership with Elder Frederick W. Evans, the head of the 
Mt. Lebanon Colony : "Religious revivals he regarded as 'the 
hot-beds of Shakerism' : they always gain members after a 
'revival' in any part of the country. 'Our proper dependence 
for increase is on the spirit and gift of God working outside. 
Hence we are friendly to all religious people.' " 

From page 131 we quote Nordhoff on accessions from 
the great Kentucky revival of 1800, resulting in the establish- 
ment of new colonies : 

"Meantime, in the first year of this century broke out in 
Kentucky a remarkable religious excitement, lasting several 
years, and attended with extraordinary and in some cases 
horrible physical demonstrations. Camp-meetings were held 
in different counties, to which people flocked by thousands,; 
and here men and women, and even small children, fell down 

*F. W. EVANS, Shakers' Compendium of the Origin, History, etc., with 
Biographies of Ann Lee, etc. 1859. 

283 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

in convulsions, foamed at the mouth and uttered loud cries. 
'At first they were taken with an inward throbbing of the 
heart; then with weeping and trembling; from that to crying 
out in apparent agony of soul; falling down and swooning 
away, until every appearance of animal life was suspended, 
and the person appeared to be in a trance.' 'They lie as 
though they were dead for some time, without pulse or 
breath, some longer, some shorter time. Some rise with joy 
and triumph, others crying for mercy.' 'To these encamp- 
ments the people flocked by hundreds and thousands — on 
foot, on horseback, and in wagons and other carriages.' At 
Cabin Creek, in May, 1801, a 'great number fell on the third 
night ; and to prevent their being trodden under foot by the 
multitude, they were collected together and laid out in order 
in two squares of the meeting-house ; which, like so many 
dead corpses, covered a considerable part of the floor. At 
Concord, in Bourbon County, in June, 1801, 'no sex or color, 
class or description, were exempted from the pervading influ- 
ence of the Spirit ; even from the age of eight months to sixty 
years.' In August, at Cane Ridge, in Bourbon County, 
'about twenty thousand people' were gathered; and 'about 
three thousand' suffered from what was called 'the falling 
exercise.' These brief extracts are from the account of an 
eye-witness, and one who believed these manifestations to be 
of divine origin.* The accuracy of McNemar's descriptions is 
beyond question. His account is confirmed by other writers 
of the time. 

"Hearing of these extraordinary events, the Shakers at 
New Lebanon sent out three of their number — John Meacham, 
Benjamin S. Youngs, and Issachar Bates — to 'open the testi- 
mony of salvation to the people, provided they were in u situ- 
ation to receive it.' They set out on New- Year's day, 1805, 
and traveled on foot about a thousand miles, through what 
was then a sparsely settled country, much of it a wilderness. 
They made some converts in Ohio and Kentucky, and were, 
fortunately for themselves, violently opposed and in some 
cases attacked by bigoted or knavish persons; and with this 
impetus they were able to found at first five societies, two in 
Ohio, two in Kentucky, and one in Indiana." 

*Richard McNemar, The Kentucky Revival, or a Short History of the 
Late Extraordinary Outpouring of the Spirit of God in the Western States of America, 
etc. Turtle Hill, Ohio, 1807. 



284 



The Conversion of Hamilton Wheeler 

It is remarkable that the Shakers, though Spiritualists, 
rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, 
a bodily resurrection, and atonement for sins. Jesus and 
Ann Lee were simply co-elders of the church. Those con- 
verts of evangelical churches who flocked to Shakerism were 
apparently attracted by their quiet, secluded, and ascetic life. 
Shattered Revolutionary soldiers were thus brought to them 
by the revivals following that war, in a manner similar to the 
revival and camp-meeting harvesting of the wrecked returned 
soldiers, following the Civil War. 



285 






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